Recent research highlights the beneficial physiological roles of senescent cells, suggesting that targeting them in anti-aging therapies could be counterproductive and risky. Credit: SciTechDaily.com
‘Senescence’ encompasses a variety of processes and cells with both beneficial and detrimental functions—thus, it is not accurate to solely attribute aging to them.
The quest for rejuvenation treatments often targets senescent cells, despite them having a positive physiological role in health in many recent cases, a leading researcher has warned.
In a paper recently published in Science, Professor Joao Pedro de Magalhaes from the University of Birmingham identifies that senescent cells which have been variously referred to as responsible for aging actually have various positive health impacts, and targeting them therapeutically could be detrimental.
The Dual Role of Senescence in Health
Professor de Magalhaes highlights the important role that cellular senescence plays in the development of several tissues and organs as well as:
- inflammation and wound healing,
- tumor suppression,
- insulin secretion in pancreatic beta cells,
- and has structural roles in the vascular system and placenta.
Senescence has also been observed in tissue regeneration in some animals including in mice, where hepatic stellate cells which are crucial to normal liver functioning become senescent following injury.
Joao Pedro de Magalhaes, Professor of Molecular Biogerontology at the University of Birmingham and author of the paper said: “The role of cellular senescence in aging and age-related diseases is a major area of research, which has led to the ongoing development of therapies targeting senescent cells. Recent findings, however, have revealed a surprising and growing number of normal physiological roles of senescent cells. Strikingly, these results show that senescent cells play important physiological roles and raise major questions about the rationale, efficacy, and safety of targeting senescent cells therapeutically. While it’s clear that there are some instances in which cellular senescence is implicated in aging diseases, targeting senescent cells therapeutically entails risks and may not be the way to go in order to tackle aging.”
Reference: “Cellular senescence in normal physiology” by João Pedro de Magalhães, 20 June 2024, Science.
DOI: 10.1126/science.adj7050