Abstract

Cellular senescence, an important factor in ageing phenotypes, can be induced by replicative exhaustion or by stress. We investigated the relation between maximum replicative capacity, telomere length, stress-induced cellular senescence, and apoptosis/cell death in human primary fibroblast strains obtained from nonagenarians of the Leiden 85-plus Study. Fibroblast strains were cultured until replicative senescence and stressed with rotenone at low passage. Telomere length, senescence-associated-β-galactosidase activity, sub-G1 content, and Annexin-V/PI positivity were measured in nonstressed and stressed conditions. Fibroblast strains with a higher replicative capacity had longer telomeres (p = .054). In nonstressed conditions, replicative capacity was not associated with β-gal activity (p = .07) and negatively with sub-G1 (p = .008). In rotenone-stressed conditions, replicative capacity was negatively associated with β-gal activity (p = .034) and positively with sub-G1 (p = .07). Summarizing, fibroblast strains with a higher maximum replicative capacity have longer telomeres, are less prone to go into stress-induced cellular senescence, and more prone to die after stress.