International Journal of Molecular and Cellular Medicine (IJMCM)

Usually, human life begins with a cry and respiratory distress, and then extends to a diverse set of extrinsic and intrinsic stressors, of which infection, DNA replication stress, and oxidative stress are the most common. These stresses converge to aging and age-related diseases and ultimately toward death, which is the final and profound challenge for human beings. Although immunology has achieved its glory in responding to infectious microorganisms, the roles of the immune system, both in combating various cellular stresses, as well as in generating cellular stress with each heartbeat, are not negligible and need to be further highlighted. Here, we report a summary of more than a decade of our research on serum starvation, replicative cell senescence, and heat shock-mediated cellular stress responses using some advanced laboratory methods and a wide range of preclinical models, suggesting that the threat of cellular stress can be exploited as an opportunity to treat some age-related diseases such as cancer and atherosclerosis. In this brief, the clinical applications of fibroblasts and immune cells' responses to three stressors: serum starvation, replicative cell senescence, and heat shock, are discussed and compared with human ovarian follicular fluid as a control fluid derived from unstressed cell.