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Outstanding progress in elucidating the pathology of muscular disorders at light and electron microscopic levels has allowed the identification of proteins involved in pathological alterations. This, in turn, has led to discoveries of multiple genes and mutations associated with previously poorly understood conditions. An unexpected result is that phenotypically similar and pathogenetically related neuromuscular disorders are associated with mutations in one or the other of several interacting proteins. Keywords: desmin-related myopathy; distal myopathy; cardiomyopathy; desmin and alpha-B crystallin gene mutations; functional analysis; molecular pathogenesis; genotype–phenotype correlations