Mouse models in modeling aging and cancer.

Mouse models have been widely used in the research of human diseases. Aging, just as cancer, is influenced by the interaction of various genetic and environmental factors. Currently, aging could be induced by many mechanism, including telomere dysfunction, oxidase stress, DNA damage and epigenetic changes. Many of these genetic pathways are also shared by aging and cancer. The mouse models generated to study these pathways might manifest either aging or cancer phenotypes, sometimes both, which in deed has worked as a good model system in understanding the correlation between aging and cancer. Here, we reviewed these mouse models that were generated to model aging or cancer. These mouse models might help us put those related pathways in context and discover essential interactions in cancer and aging regulation.