Whole exome and transcriptome sequencing in sporadic ALS

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig''s disease, is a fatal and devastating neurodegenerative disorder that causes the progressive death of upper and lower motor neurons. Although many efforts have been done to elucidate molecular factors involved in the onset and progression of the disorder, the causes of ALS are yet unknown and undefined. Transcriptome studies, based mostly on microarrays, have revealed multiple perturbations of the motor neuron function, supporting the current idea that several cellular events contribute to the pathobiology of the disease, including mitochondrial dysfunction, enhanced apoptosis, glutamate-mediated excitotoxicity, free radical injury, protein misfolding, abnormal calcium metabolism and altered axonal transport. In the present study, we have deeply sequenced the whole transcriptome of ventral horns of the human lumbar spinal cord from matched control and ALS post-mortem donors. Whole exome sequencing... (for more see dbGaP study page.)