Neurodegenerative diseases that affect the motor neurons, including amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), have little treatment options and are generally rapidly fatal (1, 2). We harnessed the power of unbiased, whole transcriptome differential gene expression analysis, utilizing primary patient cells and tissues to discover genes whose expression defines sporadic ALS using published data (3, 4). We found significant differential expression of ZNF688, encoding zinc finger protein 688, in induced

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... pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-derived motor neurons of patients with ALS. ZNF688 was also differentially expressed in fibroblasts isolated from patients with ALS. ZNF688 transcript was present at lower levels in ALS iPSC-derived motor neurons. These analyses will begin to define the transcriptional landscape of ALS.