title: Senescence in chronic liver disease: Is the future in aging?
abstract: Cellular senescence is a fundamental, complex mechanism with an important protective role present from embryogenesis to late life across all species. It limits the proliferative potential of damaged cells thus protecting against malignant change, but at the expense of substantial alterations to the microenvironment and tissue homeostasis, driving inflammation, fibrosis and paradoxically, malignant disease if the process is sustained. Cellular senescence has attracted considerable recent interest with recognition of pathways linking aging, malignancy and insulin resistance and the current focus on therapeutic interventions to extend health-span. There are major implications for hepatology in the field of fibrosis and cancer, where cellular senescence of hepatocytes, cholangiocytes, stellate cells and immune cells has been implicated in chronic liver disease progression. This review focuses on cellular senescence in chronic liver disease and explores therapeutic opportunities.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada; National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Nottingham Digestive Diseases Biomedical Research Unit, University of Nottingham and Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, Nottingham, UK.
authors.forename: Aloysious D
authors.initials: AD
authors.lastname: Aravinthan
authors.affiliation: UCL Institute for Liver and Digestive Health, The Royal Free Trust, London, UK; Department of Medicine, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK. Electronic address: gja1000@doctors.org.uk.
authors.forename: Graeme J M
authors.initials: GJM
authors.lastname: Alexander
mesh_terms: D000375:Aging; D016922:Cellular Senescence; D002908:Chronic Disease; D022781:Hepatocytes; D006801:Humans; D007249:Inflammation; D007728:Kupffer Cells; D008107:Liver Diseases
keywords: Cellular senescence; Chronic liver disease; Hepatocyte senescence; Liver fibrosis