#senescent cells

[bpod-bpod]

Targeting Zombie Cells

Senescent cells are those that have stopped multiplying but not yet died. Sometimes referred to as ‘zombie cells’, they accumulate with age and can release chemicals that can cause cancer. To better understand how senescent cells might be involved in the initiation and development of lung tumours, researchers have a developed a mouse model allowing examination of senescent cells within the tumour microenvironment. The team discovered that senescent macrophages – a type of white blood cell of the immune system – release pro-tumour factors creating an environment that fosters lung tumour growth. However, when the researchers treated mice with lung tumours with a drug that specifically destroys these ‘zombie’ macrophages, the size of the tumours (highlighted in green in these lung sections) reduced dramatically (right) compared to those without treatment (left). Excitingly, this shows that targeting senescent macrophages could be an effective new way to treat or even prevent these tumours.

Written by Sophie Arthur

Image from work by Scott Haston and colleagues

Developmental Biology and Cancer Programme, Birth Defects Research Centre, UCL Institute of Child Health, London & Early Cancer Institute, Department of Oncology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Published in Cancer Cell, June 2023

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[currentsinbiology]

Zombie cells found in brains of mice prior to cognitive loss

Zombie cells are the ones that can't die but are equally unable to perform the functions of a normal cell. These zombie, or senescent, cells are implicated in a number of age-related diseases. And with a new letter in Nature, Mayo Clinic researchers have expanded that list.

I knew it!  Zombies.

[principleofplenitude]

Just by removing senescent cells, you could stimulate new tissue production,” says Jennifer Elisseeff, senior author of the cartilage paper and a biomedical engineer at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. It jump-starts some of the tissue's natural repair mechanisms, she says. This anti-ageing phenomenon has been an unexpected twist in the study of senescent cells, a common, non-dividing cell type first described more than five decades ago. When a cell enters senescence — and almost all cells have the potential to do so — it stops producing copies of itself, begins to belch out hundreds of proteins, and cranks up anti-death pathways full blast. A senescent cell is in its twilight: not quite dead, but not dividing as it did at its peak. Now biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies are keen to test drugs — known as senolytics — that kill senescent cells in the hope of rolling back, or at least forestalling, the ravages of age. Unity Biotechnology in San Francisco, California, co-founded by van Deursen, plans to conduct multiple clinical trials over the next two-and-a-half years, treating people with osteoarthritis, eye diseases and pulmonary diseases. At Mayo, gerontologist James Kirkland, who took part in the 2011 study, is cautiously beginning a handful of small, proof-of-concept trials that pit senolytic drugs against a range of age-related ailments. “I lose sleep at night because these things always look good in mice or rats, but when you get to people you hit a brick wall,” says Kirkland.

“To stay young, kill zombie cells” from Nature

[currentsinbiology]

Flushing out 'zombie cells' could help stave off Parkinson's

In work that could open a new front in the war on Parkinson’s disease, and even ageing itself, scientists have shown that they can stave off some of the effects of the neurodegenerative disease by flushing “zombie cells” from the brain.

The research in mice raises hopes for a fresh approach to treating the most common forms of Parkinson’s disease, which typically arise through a complex interplay of genetics, lifestyle and potentially toxic substances in the environment.

But the approach may have benefits far beyond Parkinson’s, with other neurodegenerative diseases – and the ageing process more broadly – all being linked to the ill effects of these “senescent” cells, which linger in tissues after entering a state of suspended animation in the body.

“It’s a completely new way of looking at neurodegenerative disease and finding potential drugs,” said Marco Demaria, a molecular biologist on the team at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. “For most of these conditions, we don’t have any way to counteract them.”

[scientificinquirer-blog]

The Complicated Marriage Between Aging Cells and Stem Cells A new review challenges the simplistic view of cellular senescence and stemness as opposites, revealing their complex interactions that influence tissue regeneration, aging, and cancer, highlighting the need for nuanced therapeutic approaches....

The Complicated Marriage Between Aging Cells and Stem Cells

[earthlingdownunder]

Senescent cells

Senescent cells – often called zombie cells – stop dividing in response to stressors but don’t die. Instead, they linger on in biological limbo, producing a complex toxic secretome cocktail called SASP, and causing age-related tissue and organ dysfunction and various chronic age-related diseases. These stressors can be a variety of environmental and internal damaging events, including abnormal cellular growth, oxidative stress and autophagy factors.

Studies show that senescent cells have a role to play in both human health and the aging process, and recent research with mice suggests that the clearing of senescent cells delays the onset of age-related dysfunction and disease as well as all-cause mortality.

Researchers are bridging mouse and human data to reveal the biology of senescent cells.

[redshift-13]

The first non-invasive biomarker to track and verify efficacy of senolytic drugs

Buck Institute researchers have discovered and are developing a novel, non-invasive biomarker test that can be used to measure and track the performance of senolytics: a class of drugs that selectively eliminate senescent cells. The discovery is expected to play a major role in efforts to develop treatments that would battle a myriad of chronic age-related conditions that range from arthritis to lung disease to Alzheimer’s disease and glaucoma.

[heckjoan78-blog]

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