The biology of aging and cancer: A complex association

Abstract

Aging is accompanied by several age-related disorders leading to death of living beings. These age-related disorders and pathological conditions may also include the development of cancer. Cancer is a chronic disease, and many changes at cellular, molecular, and physiological levels that occur during aging affect the biology of cancer. There are several phenomena which are common between cancer and aging such as telomere shortening, genomic instability, senescence, global hypomethylation, promoter-specific hypermethylation, metabolism, and autophagy. Hence, the association between biology of cancer and aging is incontrovertible; however, the underlying molecular mechanisms could be similar or different. Understanding the common cellular and molecular biology of stem and progenitors cells in cancer and aging will undoubtedly help in exploring novel targets that could be used as a therapy and thus can improve the early detection and treatment of aging-associated pathologies such as cancer.