The importance of XRCC1 is illustrated by the observations that deletion of this gene in mouse is embryonic lethal (Tebbs et al., 1999) and that hereditary mutations in human XRCC1 result in progressive neurodegenerative disease (Hoch et al., 2017; O’Connor et al., 2018). Here, XRCC1 is linked to neurodegenerative disease.