Triggering of the DNA damage response and major alterations to the epigenome are well known to occur in human senescent cells—and when we introduce epigenetic noise into the ICE cells they go on to senesce earlier than untreated cells, so maybe this idea has merit. I suspect that senescence in nerve and muscle cells, which don’t divide much or at all, is the result of epigenetic noise that causes cells to lose their identity and shut down. This once-beneficial response, which evolved to help cells survive DNA damage, has a dark side: the permanently panicked cell sends out signals to
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