A Demonstration in which Cellular Senescence is Reversed

In principle any cell state can be reprogrammed into another cell state - it is a matter of figuring out the machinery involved, which remains no small task even now in this age of revolutionary progress in the tools of biotechnology. Some cell state changes are more plausible and easily discovered since they correspond, nearly or exactly, to transitions that already take place in at least some circumstances and species. So skin cells can be turned into the induced pluripotent stem cells that are near identical to embryonic stem cells, and which can then differentiate into another cell type, such as a neuron. Alternatively those skin cells can be converted directly to entirely different cell types without going through the pluripotent stage, via forms of transdifferentiation. Senescent cells are those that have entered a state of growth arrest in response to damage, a toxic environment, or hitting the replication limit that exists for all somatic cells. Senescent cells do not replicate, and they either remain in this state indefinitely, in a tiny minority of cases, or self-destruct, in the vast majority of cases. They never return to replication. But when we say that the state of cellular senescence is irreversible, we mean that it is observed to be irreversible in the normal run of things in our tissues, just as skin cells don't randomly turn into induced pluripotent stem cells in the normal run of things in our tissues. Once researchers can start tinkering with cell ...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs