OPTN and neurodegenerative disease: The observations reported here are likely to pertain to neurodegenerative diseases associated with TDP-43, TAF15, EWS, hnRNPA1, and B2. Impaired degradation and removal of these assembly-prone proteins could also explain the occurrence of pathological assemblies of these proteins (particularly TDP-43) in ALS/FTD caused by mutations in autophagy pathway genes such as p62, optineurin, TBK-1, and valosin-containing protein-1.