Cell growth and viability

Senescence of tissues, organs and individuals is an expression of processes going on at the cell level. In terms of comparative biology a cell is a cell is a cell and senescence may be expected to figure amongst the common features of structure and physiology. The basic characteristics of cell growth and proliferation are shared across the taxa and senescence may be considered to be an emergent property of the interaction between the drive towards increasing size and the limitations it encounters. Programmed senescence and cell death may have evolved as a way of both bowing to the inevitable and making a survival virtue out of necessity. Senescence is therefore properly recognised as a normal and even essential phase in the life-cycle of cells.

Links and further reading

• Gan S (2003) Mitotic and postmitotic senescence in plants. Science of Aging Knowledge Environment 38: re7
• Osiewacz HD, ed (2003) Aging of Organisms. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
• Digests of publications on the cell biology of senescence at ScienceWeek
• Gray J (2004) Programmed Cell Death in Plants . Boca Raton: CRC Press.