The up-regulation of CASP9, which encodes for caspase-9 protein, might activate mitochondria-dependent apoptotic signaling, an event that has been described in neurodegenerative diseases (Andreoli et al., 2009; Darwish and Amiridze, 2010) including ALS (Pasinelli et al., 2000; Guégan et al., 2001, 2002; Inoue et al., 2003). Here, CASP9 is linked to neurodegenerative disease.