NFE2L2 and neurodegenerative disease: Lastly, the acute injury signature included an upregulation of anti-oxidant defenses exemplified by both Nfe2l2 (encoding the nuclear factor erythroid-derived 2-like 2 or NRF2), which is a major regulator of cellular anti-oxidant defenses and confers neuroprotection in acute CNS injuries [63–66] and neurodegenerative disease models [67, 68], and Gss, an NRF2 target gene encoding for the anti-oxidant enzyme glutathione synthetase.