SOD1 and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis: However, the relationship between the pathogenesis of familiar and sporadic forms of ALS has not yet been clarified, since in the latter, misfolded wild type-SOD1 protein activates the same neurotoxic pathway that is invoked by SOD1 mutants in familiar ALS (Bosco et al., 2010; Forsberg et al., 2010).