Infection as the Link Between Cellular Senescence, Autophagy, and Immunosenescence

This open access paper reviews the interactions between cellular senescence, autophagy, and immunosenescence, with chronic infection as a mediating mechanism. Given the present state of knowledge and biotechnology, it is challenging enough to look at any two aspects of the aging body and consider how they might interact in isolation, but this can only ever be a thin slice of the bigger picture. All systems and states in our biochemistry interact with one another in some way, directly or indirectly, and examining ever larger sets of relationships between greater numbers of systems and states is the path to greater understanding of aging as a phenomenon. It is also somewhat beyond present capabilities, a complex, challenging endeavor for the scientists of future decades, which is why bypassing the need for this sort of understanding is highly desirable when working towards therapies to treat aging. We cannot afford to wait for a near complete knowledge of the progression of aging. The state of cellular senescence, in which replication is shut down, can be a reaction to damage. It is one of the ways in which cancer risk is sufficiently minimized to allow higher forms of multicellular life to exist. Senescent cells are unfortunately harmful to surrounding tissues, and their accumulation with age is one of the root causes of degenerative aging. Autophagy is a collection of cellular damage control processes, responsible for recycling broken and unwanted proteins or structure...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs