Background Loss of elastic fibers is a pathological feature of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and emphysema.After secretion from cells, tropoelastin assembles into functional elastic fibers (insoluble elastin).In our previous study, despite the increased expression of tropoelastin by the COPD fibroblasts this did not translate into increased assembly of elastic fibers by these cells, which was accompanied by an increased production of versican 1 (V1).V1 is believed to interfere with tropoelastin assembly.Therefore we hypothesized that down-regulation of V1 could improve elastic fiber repair.