Cellular senescence, aging, and age-related disease: Special issue of BMB Reports in 2019

Cellular senescence is a state of permanent cell cycle arrest which exhibits large and flattened morphological characteristics. Cellular senescence might evolve to a beneficial process to suppress the accumulation of severely damaged cells. However, senescent cells are considered as the cause of age-related pathologies and diseases. In contrast to replicative senescence, premature senescence could be rapidly induced through intrinsic and extrinsic insults. Cancer cell senescence has been accepted as an alternative and attractive tumor suppressive mechanism. In addition to the non-proliferative aspect, senescence associated with diverse functionality affects tissue homeostasis through the communication with their neighboring cells. Aging is a time-dependent process of deterioration, accompanied by progressive metabolic alteration and accumulation of senescent cells. Thus, aging is the main risk factor for many chronic diseases. Chronic inflammation which is principally induced by senescence associated secretory phenotype (SASP) might be the major underlying cause of many age-related disease. Recently, senotherapeutics, medicines targeting to kill or modulate senescent cells selectively, have been implicated to be novel strategy for aging intervention which is applicable to promote healthy aging and to prevent or treat age-related diseases. This special issue invites one perspective and ten mini-reviews covering various senescence features, gene expression characteristics with aging, therapeutic strategies related with cancer and age-related diseases. [BMB Reports 2019; 52(1): 1-2].