Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 15 October 2026 · From issue 52
An integrative transcriptomic atlas of ALS and aging skeletal muscle defines shared and distinct molecular programs of degeneration
In mice, early ALS muscle already shows gene patterns that look like old age muscle.
Mercedes Grima-Terrén, Megan Rommelfanger et al.
Mice with an ALS-like disease showed muscle damage that looked like old age muscle, even early in the disease. This hints that ALS makes muscle age faster than normal. Later on, ALS and normal aging harmed the same kind of fast muscle fiber in similar ways. But ALS also turned on a special set of genes that aging alone never does, which may explain why ALS muscle wasting is so much faster and worse.
This gene pattern was found only in diseased mouse muscle, not in aging mouse muscle.
Mouse model only, no human muscle data yet.
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