TARDBP and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis: Transactive response DNA-binding protein, 43 kDa (TDP-43) is an RNA binding protein that is associated with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS): TDP-43 mutations can cause ALS (Gitcho et al., 2008), and the vast majority of ALS patients harbor TDP-43 neuropathology in post-mortem studies (Mackenzie et al., 2007).