Reviewing Proteomic Studies of Cellular Senescence

In today's open access paper, the authors survey the work of the past decade in the use of proteomics to assess the consequences of cellular senescence. Senescent cells accumulate with age, but even in late age they remain a tiny fraction of all cells. The harms caused by the long-term presence of senescent cells occur because these cells secrete a potent mix of inflammatory signals, growth factors, and other molecules that rouse the immune system, promote fibrosis and other dysfunctions in tissue maintenance, encourage other cells to also become senescent, and so forth. This senescence-associated secretory phenotype is actually beneficial in the short term: it assists in wound healing and suppression of cancer, for example. As for so many other areas of biochemistry, too much of a good thing is not a good thing at all. Work progresses on the commercial development of senolytic therapies capable of selectively destroying senescent cells in old tissues. In animal models of numerous age-related conditions, this class of intervention produces consistent and impressive benefits. It is literally a form of rejuvenation, removing cells that are actively maintaining a degraded, damaging state of an aged metabolism. Many age-related conditions have a strong inflammatory component, and those tested are reversed to a meaningful degree by removal of senescent cells and their pro-inflammatory signaling. Interestingly, this field is presently somewhat ahead of the ability to accurat...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs