Research Perspective|Volume 2, Issue 5|pp 311—314

Quality and quantity control of proteins in senescence

Masashi Narita¹

¹Cancer Research UK, Cambridge Research Institute, Li Ka Shing Centre, Cambridge CB2 0RE, United Kingdom

Received: May 5, 2010Accepted: May 17, 2010Published: May 18, 2010

Copyright: © 2010 Narita et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Abstract

Autophagy has been implicated in aging and age-related diseases but its roles in these processes are far from straightforward: the anti-aging effect of autophagy has been shown in lower eukaryotes, and both pro- and anti-tumorigenic effects of autophagy have also been demonstrated. The new link between autophagy and senescence provides an insight into the diversified downstream effects of autophagy in various cellular contexts.