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Motor neuron disease

Spinal cord transcriptome provides ALS insights

Nature Reviews Neurology volume 19, page 67 (2023)Cite this article

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A new transcriptomic analysis of spinal cord tissue from patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) — the largest study of its kind — provides evidence to support a pivotal role for glial cells in ALS pathogenesis. The investigators performed RNA sequencing on post-mortem spinal cord tissue samples from 154 patients with ALS and 49 control individuals with no neurological disease. The patient samples showed increased expression of marker genes for microglia and astrocytes and reduced expression of marker genes for motor neurons and oligodendrocytes. The duration of the ALS disease course correlated positively with astrocytic gene expression and negatively with microglial gene expression, suggesting that the glial composition of the spinal cord influences the rate of disease progression.

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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. Spinal cord transcriptome provides ALS insights. Nat Rev Neurol 19, 67 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41582-022-00772-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41582-022-00772-0

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