multiomic mapping of senescent cells in tissues

Description: Senescent cells, which stop dividing but do not die off when they should, accumulate in naturally aged tissues and can negatively impact their local tissue environments. Studies found that removing them in adult mice significantly improved both healthspan and lifespan. However, the senescence phenotype is highly diverse due to heterogeneous senescence programs. So far, there is a lack of universal and unequivocal markers for studying senescence in vivo and guiding targeted removal of these cells. A preferred avenue for discovering senescence markers is to spatially map ‘omic’ states of cell types in different tissues and life stages at single-cell resolution. Our lab, as part of an NIH supported SenNet consortium, is developing Pixel-seq-based spatial transcriptomic and proteomic assays to map senescent cells in human and mouse tissues.

Funding: NIH Common Fund (UG3CA268096)