Patent 7126040 was granted and assigned to Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation on October, 2006 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
A mouse model for mammalian aging is disclosed. In one embodiment, the invention comprises a mouse having a genomic mutation in the exonuclease domain II (ExoII) of a mitochondrial DNA polymerase gamma (PolG) gene, wherein the mutation leads to high levels of mutations in polymerase mtDNA.