The physiological importance of these factors is underscored by the observations that murine N-WASP, WAVE1, WAVE2, and WASH gene knockouts result in lethality [19, 20, 22, 29], that mutations in human WAS give rise to immunodeficiencies [18, 85], and that a mutation in WHAMM is found in patients with a neurodevelopmental/renal disorder [38, 86]. This evidence concerns the gene WASL and kidney disorder.