The idea that senescent cells are causally involved in aging has gained strong support from findings that the removal of such cells alleviates many age‐related diseases and extends the life span of mice. While efforts proceed to make therapeutic use of such discoveries, it is important to ask what evolutionary forces might have been behind the emergence of cellular senescence, in order better to understand the biology that we might seek to alter. Cellular senescence is often regarded as an anti‐cancer mechanism, since it limits the division potential of cells. However, many studies have shown that senescent cells often also have carcinogenic properties. This is difficult to reconcile with the simple idea of an anti‐cancer mechanism. Furthermore, other studies have shown that cellular senescence is involved in wound healing and tissue repair. Here, we bring these findings and ideas together and discuss the possibility that these functions might be the main reason for the evolution of cellular senescence. Furthermore, we discuss the idea that senescent cells might accumulate with age because the immune system had to strike a balance between false negatives (overlooking some senescent cells) and false positives (destroying healthy body cells).

中文翻译：

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关于细胞衰老的进化

衰老细胞与衰老有因果关系的观点得到了研究结果的有力支持，即去除这些细胞可以减轻许多与年龄相关的疾病并延长小鼠的寿命。在努力将这些发现用于治疗的同时，重要的是要了解细胞衰老出现背后的进化力量可能是什么，以便更好地了解我们可能寻求改变的生物学。细胞衰老通常被认为是一种抗癌机制，因为它限制了细胞的分裂潜力。然而，许多研究表明，衰老细胞通常也具有致癌特性。这很难与抗癌机制的简单想法相协调。此外，其他研究表明，细胞衰老与伤口愈合和组织修复有关。这里，我们将这些发现和想法结合在一起，并讨论这些功能可能是细胞衰老进化的主要原因的可能性。此外，我们讨论了衰老细胞可能会随着年龄的增长而积累的观点，因为免疫系统必须在假阴性（忽略一些衰老细胞）和假阳性（破坏健康的身体细胞）之间取得平衡。