“…General reduction in DNA repair capacity during ageing and in sporadic NDDs could involve multiple mechanisms including, (i) altered transcriptional regulation causing reduced expression of a repair protein (e.g., reduced levels of MRN, DNA-PKcs [143, 163] in CS; reduced OGG1 (in mitochondria) [164] and Polβ in AD [165], reduced breast cancer associated gene 1 (BRCA1) in AD brain [166]); (ii) inhibition of catalytic activity of repair proteins, whose levels are otherwise comparable to healthy neurons in the CNS, primarily by NDD-linked etiological factors like exposure to excessive pro-oxidant metals and ROS (e.g., metal and ROS-mediated inhibition of NEIL1, NEIL2, LigIII, APE1 etc., in AD and PD [167, 168]; reduced catalytic activity of OGG1 in AD [136, 169] and reduced Polβ activity in AD [136, 165] and (iii) abnormal degradation and/or mis-localization of repair proteins (e.g., degradation of ATM and PARP1 by caspases/Matrix-Metallo-Proteinases (MMPs) [170], nuclear to cytoplasmic mis-localization of FUS in ALS [13]. Most of the NDDs have complex etiologies including oxidative stress, pro-oxidant metal and other toxic free radicals, and the misfolded/aggregating protein response, together with extensive accumulation of various types of DNA damages [18].…”