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MOTOR NEURON DISEASE

Study reveals new ALS risk genes

Nature Reviews Neurology volume 18, page 128 (2022)Cite this article

A recent study has used a machine learning approach to identify genetic risk factors for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Sai Zhang, Johnathan Cooper-Knock, Michael Snyder and colleagues report a previously unrecognized association between ALS and KANK1, which encodes a protein implicated in distal axon function in motor neurons.

“ALS is known to have a strong genetic component, but only a handful of genes have been identified and they explain very little of the heritability,” comments Snyder. “We decided to use a machine learning approach and to focus on the regulatory regions of genes expressed in motor neurons.”

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  1. Nature Reviews Neurology http://www.nature.com/nrneurol/

    Heather Wood

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  1. Heather Wood
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Correspondence to Heather Wood.

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Wood, H. Study reveals new ALS risk genes. Nat Rev Neurol 18, 128 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41582-022-00622-z

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