C9orf72 and frontotemporal dementia: Based on the evolutionary conservation of various pathogenic genes with C. elegans, the C. elegans genetic models may be the first candidates to study the genetic interactions among these pathogenic genes; therefore, C. elegans genetic models, such as the mutative C9ORF72 gene, may be used to model both ALS and FTD to study the potential genetic interactions and networks in the pathogenesis of ALS and FTD (Therrien and Parker, 2014b).