We next hypothesized that the DNA damage response abnormally induces the autophagy pathway in ALS-hMSCs through AMPK phosphorylation signaling, which inhibits the negative regulator of autophagy mTOR and activates the autophagosome (omegasome) formation factor ULK1 (Kim et al., 2011). The gene discussed is PRKAA2; the disease is amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.