Reviewing What is Known of Extracellular Vesicles and Cellular Senescence

The research community has been devoting more time and energy to the investigation of extracellular vesicles of late. These membrane-bound packages of proteins and other molecules are an important facet of the way in which cells communicate with one another. Signaling between cells is itself very significant, a potential point of intervention for many classes of therapy. For example, most current stem cell therapies appear to work largely due to the signaling provided by transplanted cells - given sufficient understanding of the signaling, the cells could be dispensed with and the signals applied directly. As another example, the growing presence of cellular senescence with age has a large detrimental impact on tissue function, despite the comparatively small numbers of senescent cells present even in older individuals, because these negative effects are mediated by signaling. In this way, a handful of errant cells can put the entire local environment into disarray. On that topic, the open access paper here takes a short tour of what is known about extracellular vesicles in the context of cellular senescence. Cellular senescence prevents the proliferation of cells exposed to potentially oncogenic stresses, such as DNA-damaging reagents, irradiation, telomere shortening, and oncogene activation. Mutations in genes essential for the senescence-induced cell cycle arrest predispose cells to immortalization and shorten lifespan by increasing cancer incidence. Howev...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs