Current and future directions in genomics of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

New knowledge of the structure and function of the human genome and novel genomic technologies are being applied to the study of sporadic amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). These studies can examine tens to hundreds of thousands of items at once, and depend on sophisticated computer processing. Current studies are focused on genetic susceptibility and gene expression and future studies will likely focus on structural variation, gene regulation and non-protein coding regions. The hope is that they will lead to deeper understanding of molecular aspects of the disease and to rational therapeutic targets.