Samples from AMD patients showed a stronger accumulation of p62/SQSTM1 rather than ELAVL1/HuR, suggesting a greater contribution of autophagy in clearing protein aggregates than proteasome-mediated proteolysis, and in this way, autophagy can be seen as the main mechanism involved in the protein aggregation in RPE cells (Fig. 3b). This evidence concerns the gene SQSTM1 and age-related macular degeneration.