Previous work (LaVaute et al., 2001; Jeong et al., 2011) has described the neurodegenerative disease phenotype of Irp2−/− mice as progressive, making it difficult to compare results from different groups using mice of different ages and/or excluding female mice in their experiments (Galy et al., 2006; Zumbrennen-Bullough et al., 2014). Here, IREB2 is linked to neurodegenerative disease.