Senotherapeutics: An emerging approach to the treatment of viral infectious diseases in the elderly

Front Cell Infect Microbiol. 2023 Mar 29:13:1098712. doi: 10.3389/fcimb.2023.1098712. eCollection 2023.

Abstract

In the context of the global COVID-19 pandemic, the phenomenon that the elderly have higher morbidity and mortality is of great concern. Existing evidence suggests that senescence and viral infection interact with each other. Viral infection can lead to the aggravation of senescence through multiple pathways, while virus-induced senescence combined with existing senescence in the elderly aggravates the severity of viral infections and promotes excessive age-related inflammation and multiple organ damage or dysfunction, ultimately resulting in higher mortality. The underlying mechanisms may involve mitochondrial dysfunction, abnormal activation of the cGAS-STING pathway and NLRP3 inflammasome, the role of pre-activated macrophages and over-recruited immune cells, and accumulation of immune cells with trained immunity. Thus, senescence-targeted drugs were shown to have positive effects on the treatment of viral infectious diseases in the elderly, which has received great attention and extensive research. Therefore, this review focused on the relationship between senescence and viral infection, as well as the significance of senotherapeutics for the treatment of viral infectious diseases.

Keywords: COVID-19; NLRP3 inflammasome; cGAS-STING; senescence; senotherapeutics; virus.

Publication types

  • Review
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Aged
  • COVID-19*
  • Communicable Diseases*
  • Humans
  • Pandemics
  • Senotherapeutics
  • Signal Transduction

Substances

  • Senotherapeutics

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No.2042022kf1215), the Special Funds for Innovation in Scientific Research Program of Zhongshan under Grant 2020AG024, Chinese Foundation for Hepatitis Prevention and Control-Tian Qing Liver Disease Research Fund Subject (TGQB20210109), the Open Funds of Key Laboratory of Diagnosis and Treatment of Digestive System Tumors of Zhejiang Province (KFJJ-202005, KFJJ-201907), the Open Research Program of the State Key Laboratory of Virology of China (2021KF002, 2021KF006) and the Key Research and Development Project of Hubei Province (2022BCA009).