A surprising indication from the transcriptome was the increased levels of COL10A1 (Lu et al., 2014), BMP2 (Grimsrud et al., 2001), IBSP, defensin beta-1 (DEFB1), ADAMTS5, pro-inflammatory (TNFAIP6, CXCL) and proliferation (CCND1, IGFBP) genes in the AGD NP (Figure 6—figure supplement 1E–H), reaffirming the involvement of hypertrophic-like events (Melas et al., 2014) in the aged and degenerated NP. Here, TNFAIP6 is linked to argyrophilic grain disease.