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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Aging
Sec. Cellular Senescence
Volume 5 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fragi.2024.1477528
This article is part of the Research Topic Biological Impact of the Senescence-Associated Secretory Phenotype in Health and Disease View all articles

Persistent elevation of plasma markers of cellular senescence after hip fracture: a pilot longitudinal study

Provisionally accepted
  • 1 Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri, United States
  • 2 University of Connecticut Health Center, Farmington, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Hip fractures may result from and contribute to accelerated biological aging. We aimed to evaluate the impact of hip fracture and its surgery on the senescence-associated secretory phenotype (SASP) index, a composite of peripheral protein markers where higher scores are thought to indicate greater levels of cellular senescence and accelerated aging. We examined the SASP index in plasma over 12 weeks post-surgery and its prediction of long-term postsurgical functional outcomes. We included 60 older adults: 20 recruited immediately after hip fracture surgery, and 40 comparison individuals who were either healthy or suffering chronic psychosocial stress (caregiving). We assessed 22 SASP biomarkers and calculated the SASP index score for each hip fracture participant immediately following fracture surgery and 4 and 12 weeks later. Functional recovery was assessed at 12, 26, and 52 weeks after hip replacement surgery. The hip fracture group had higher SASP index scores than the comparison groups, after adjusting for potential confounding variables (p=0.021). SASP index scores in hip fracture patients increased further by week 4 after surgery (p<0.001), declining by week 12 but remaining elevated overall. However, the SASP index scores were not significantly associated with functional recovery after hip replacement surgery at 26 or 52 weeks after surgery. In conclusion, after hip fracture surgery SASP scores are elevated, continue to rise over time, and do not return to normal by 12 weeks post-surgery. Our findings support the need to investigate this phenomenon of post-operative senescence, including whether novel interventions such as senolytics would help older adults facing major surgery.

    Keywords: senescence-associated secretory phenotype, cellular senescence, Hip fracture, Biology of aging, Aging

    Received: 07 Aug 2024; Accepted: 31 Oct 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Lenze, Nicol, Kuchel, Avidan and Diniz. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Breno S. Diniz, University of Connecticut Health Center, Farmington, United States

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