Therefore, to evaluate whether early FoxP3 or Gata3 levels might be predictive of future disease progression rates, leukocyte RNAs from a single time-point were collected from a second group of 102 ALS patients during their early stages of disease; their AALS scores were re-evaluated every 3 months over a 3.5-year evaluation period to determine the time to 100 AALS points and survival (‘test’ data set). The gene discussed is GATA3; the disease is amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.