NRL and retinitis pigmentosa: NEUROD1 appears to play an essential role as a transcription factor for neuronal development in Xenopus. NRL is proposed as a therapeutic gene therapy target in the retina to prevent secondary cone degeneration and alleviate the symptoms of retinitis pigmentosa, since its disruption in the mature postmitotic rod cells of mice leads them to adopt cone features and resist cell death (Yu et al., 2017).