The molecular processes in the body that cause ALS patients to increasingly lose control of motor functions are still poorly understood. Previous studies have been limited to individual aspects of the underlying molecular processes. A consortium led by Prof. Paul Lingor, a neurologist at TUM, has investigated ALS using a so-called "multi-omics" approach. The researchers mapped both coding and non-coding RNA molecules and the entirety of the proteins.

A key finding of the study is that ALS can be roughly divided into four subtypes. "You can't distinguish between these variants based on the clinical symptoms," says Paul Lingor, who, together with other researchers is part of the SyNergy Cluster of Excellence investigating neurodegenerative diseases. "However, very different things happen at the molecular level. This means that an active substance that is ineffective in one ALS subtype may well be helpful in another. Previous clinical studies were only able to look at the effects across all patients and may not have identified substances effective for an individual subtype."