Research Paper Volume 4, Issue 9 pp 620—635

Figure 1. Aging causes loss of mtDNA copy numbers and mtDNA transcription. (top row) qPCR analyses of mtDNA gene levels in gDNA from young (5 month, n=6) and old (21 month, n=9) brains (left), hearts (middle) and skeletal muscle (right), expressed as % mean young mouse levels. For brains and hearts, all differences between young and old animals are significant at p<0.0001; for muscle, differences between young and old CO3 levels were significant at p=0.036. No other genes had significant differences between young and old animals (all by unpaired t-test). (bottom row) qPCR analyses of mtRNA gene levels as cDNA?s in young (5 month, n=6) and old (21 month, n=9) brains (left), hearts (middle) and skeletal muscle (right), expressed as % mean young mouse levels. For brains, all differences between young and old animals are significant at p<0.0001; for heart, all differences between young and old are significant at p=0.001 or less; for muscle, differences between young and old are not significant (all by unpaired t-test).