LIVER CANCER

Therapy-induced senescence — an induced synthetic lethality in liver cancer?

Cancer therapies, in addition to inducing cell death, can trigger cellular senescence of tumour cells, and factors secreted from senescent cells might negatively affect the tumour microenvironment. A new study by Wang et al. shows that eradication of therapy-induced senescent cells (senolysis) can improve the outcome of liver cancer therapy.

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Fig. 1: Exploiting therapy-induced senescence for improved cancer therapies.

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Acknowledgements

L.Z. was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (FOR2314, SFB-TR209, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Program) and the German Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF). Further funding was provided by the DFG under Germany’s excellence strategy EXC 2180-390900677 (Image Guided and Functionally Instructed Tumour Therapies (iFIT)), the Landesstiftung Baden-Wuerttemberg, the European Research Council (CholangioConcept) and the German Cancer Research Center (DKTK).

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Correspondence to Lars Zender.

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Competing interests

K.W. and L.Z. are listed as inventors on a patent relating to PET tracers for the non-invasive detection of cellular senescence.

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Wolter, K., Zender, L. Therapy-induced senescence — an induced synthetic lethality in liver cancer?. Nat Rev Gastroenterol Hepatol (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41575-020-0262-3

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