Aging, cancer, and wound healing.

Aging processes can be described as recognizable series of molecular events within vital organ systems whose dysfunction gradually increase with time (reviewed by [1]). This dysfunction manifests itself as abnormal increases and decreases in gene expression and these events occur at a rate that exceeds the relative rate at which they can be corrected. The outcome of this progression is a steady decline in the capacity to successfully maintain an organism's peak physiology, which occurs approximately around the time of sexual maturation. The resulting changes increase the likelihood that an organism will eventually approach a state of increased vulnerability to disease and ultimately leads to death. Within the context of both wound healing and cancer, molecular mechanisms of aging-related changes affect an organism's ability to repair damaged cells and tissues through disregulation of some common molecular pathways. In the case of the former, wound healing is impaired as a result of an inability to adequately express genes which facilitate escape from cell stasis in order to commence and complete the healing process. In the latter case, the failure of a cell's repair mechanism to correct damage to DNA can lead to neoplastic transformation of a normal cell into one with unlimited growth potential. This review compares several of the molecular and cellular events associated with cancer and wound healing during aging.