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Updated: Jun 11, 2025

SA-β-Galactosidase-Based Screening Assay for the Identification of Senotherapeutic Drugs
Published on: June 28, 2019
Targeting senescent cells in aging and COVID-19: from cellular mechanisms to therapeutic opportunities
Yuan Yu1,2, Kaixuan Lin3, Haoyu Wu1
1Center for Cell Lineage and Atlas, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine, Guangdong-Hong Kong Joint Laboratory for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine, Guangzhou Institutes of Biomedicine and Health, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou, 510530, China.
Abstract:
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a global health crisis and significant social economic burden. While most individuals experience mild or non-specific symptoms, elderly individuals are at a higher risk of developing severe symptoms and life-threatening complications. Exploring the key factors associated with clinical severity highlights that key characteristics of aging, such as cellular senescence, immune dysregulation, metabolic alterations, and impaired regenerative potential, contribute to disruption of tissue homeostasis of the lung and worse clinical outcome. Senolytic and senomorphic drugs, which are anti-aging treatments designed to eliminate senescent cells or decrease the associated phenotypes, have shown promise in alleviating age-related dysfunctions and offer a novel approach to treating diseases that share certain aspects of underlying mechanisms with aging, including COVID-19. This review summarizes the current understanding of aging in COVID-19 progression, and highlights recent findings on anti-aging drugs that could be repurposed for COVID-19 treatment to complement existing therapies.
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