Breathing in the dark

A new therapeutic target in view? The genetics, pathology, and clinical manifestations of neurodegenerative diseases such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) are heterogeneous, which makes the development and testing of candidate therapeutics difficult. Le Pichon et al. identified dual leucine zipper kinase (DLK) as a common regulator of neuronal degeneration in mouse models of ALS and Alzheimer’s disease and in postmortem brain tissue from human patients. In several mouse models of neurodegenerative disease, deletion of DLK or treatment with a DLK inhibitor protected neurons and slowed disease progression. Thus, DLK may represent a therapeutic target for a number of neurodegenerative diseases. —OMS Sci. Transl. Med.9, eaag0394 (2017).