We found that the expression of OPTN markedly decreased as IVDD was exacerbated, which is consistent with findings related to the expression of OPTN in degenerative diseases (Cao et al., 2021) and the expression of other mitophagy-related genes in the intervertebral disc (Chen et al., 2020; Hu et al., 2021a). The gene discussed is OPTN; the disease is neurodegenerative disease.