Diseases of cellular senescence

Cellular senescence plays an important role in normal aging, as well as in age-related diseases. Impaired cellular senescence contributes to malignant transformation and cancer development. Presence of an excessive number of senescent cells that are not cleared by the immune system, however, promotes tissue inflammation and creates a microenvironment suitable for growth of neighboring malignant cells. Besides cancer, senescence is also involved in atherosclerosis, osteoarthritis and diabetes (Childs et al. 2015, He and Sharpless 2017).