Reply: No evidence for rare TRAP1 mutations influencing the risk of idiopathic Parkinson’s disease

Sir,

In their letter in this issue, Gaare and colleagues (2018) state that TRAP1 may not be a Parkinson’s disease gene because of lack of genetic association. In response, we welcome their data analyses and we welcome any further genetic analyses of TRAP1 variants in additional Parkinson’s disease genetic datasets, including the reanalysis of open access datasets such as the Parkinson’s Progressive Markers Initiative (PPMI). Our point of view is that TRAP1 is an interesting effector protein that our study unequivocally showed is relevant to Parkinson’s disease signaling in the context of mitochondrial regulation. Furthermore, the overall contribution of TRAP1 genetic variants to Parkinson’s disease was not the focus of our recent paper in Brain (Fitzgerald et al., 2017).