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Senescence is a tool of embryonic development repurposed to wound healing and cancer suppression. Cells need to be suppressed once the finger is done being buil
by reasonattlm 8y ago
Senescence is a tool of embryonic development repurposed to wound healing and cancer suppression. Cells need to be suppressed once the finger is done being built at the end and the edges, and senescent cells do that job. Cancerous tissue needs to be suppressed, and senescent cells are there to do that job.
The problem is not that senescent cells exist, it is that there is not 100% coverage of their removal after they do whatever the short-term job at hand happens to be. It is the lingering ones that cause the harm.
- SketchySeaBeast 8y agoSo it's their inability to be replaced that's the issue - some other mechanism is failing us. I suppose in the short term removing the cells "manually" would help.
- derefr 8y agoAlso, cells with long telomeres eventually senesce, just like the "one-time job" cells with short telomeres, even though the long-telomere cells would be better off apoptosing instead (as long as there's a source of more cells.)