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Meta-Analysis
. 2020 Feb;19(2):e13083.
doi: 10.1111/acel.13083. Epub 2019 Dec 5.

Cellular senescence and chronological age in various human tissues: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Camilla S L Tuttle  1 , Mariette E C Waaijer  2 , Monique S Slee-Valentijn  3 , Theo Stijnen  4 , Rudi Westendorp  5 , Andrea B Maier  1   6
Affiliations
Meta-Analysis

Cellular senescence and chronological age in various human tissues: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Camilla S L Tuttle et al. Aging Cell. 2020 Feb.

Abstract

Senescent cells in tissues and organs are considered to be pivotal to not only the aging process but also the onset of chronic disease. Accumulating evidence from animal experiments indicates that the magnitude of senescence can vary within and between aged tissue samples from the same animal. However, whether this variation in senescence translates across to human tissue samples is unknown. To address this fundamental question, we have conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of all available literature investigating the magnitude of senescence and its association with chronological age in human tissue samples. While senescence is higher in aged tissue samples, the magnitude of senescence varies considerably depending upon tissue type, tissue section, and marker used to detect senescence. These findings echo animal experiments demonstrating that senescence levels may vary between organs within the same animal.

Keywords: aging; cell cycle proteins; cellular senescence; human; immunosenescence.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Overview of the search strategy
Figure 2
Figure 2
Overall forest plots of the meta‐analysis for senescence and chronological age subgrouped by tissue (a) and marker type (b)
Figure 3
Figure 3
Forest plots of the subgroup meta‐analysis of senescence and chronological age for multiple associations extracted from the same article assessing senescence marker expression across tissue sections (a) and senescence marker expression within a tissue sample (b)
Figure 4
Figure 4
Overall forest plots of meta‐regression analyses for senescence load per 10 years of chronological age, expressed as the change in the overall slope (standardized units), subgrouped by tissue (a), and marker type (b)
Figure 5
Figure 5
Begg's funnel plot for correlation meta‐analysis of published articles (n = 38)
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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