Assessing the plasticity of the senescent phenotype

The senescent phenotype was evaluated to observe potential changes over time and on differing culture substrates. While numerous studies have characterized the in vitro-derived senescent phenotype of cells in culture, all of these studies observed cells within a short time-frame and while cultured on tissue culture plastic. We investigated whether the senescent phenotype changes over time or is affected by the substrate/context in which the cells are cultured. To this end, we worked with primary small airway epithelial cells where senescence was induced while cells were cultured on Matrigel. In addition, we also cultured senescent cells for a short, 5 days, and long period, 12 days, of time to observe if the phenotype of these cells is altered.