The key difference between apoptosis and senescence relies on the mechanism through which a living cell undergoes death and destruction. Apoptosis is a form of programmed cell death while senescence is the process by which cells irreversibly stop cell growth and division as a result of the ageing of cells.
Cell death is an essential process in order to maintain the cell number in an organism. In fact, cell death ensures that there is no overloading of cells in an organism. Moreover, cell death will prevent the survival of toxic cells, which would cause a varying array of complications in an organism. There are several mechanisms in an organism for the maintenance of cell number. Apoptosis and senescence are two such popular but two different mechanisms. Hence this article attempts to highlight the difference between apoptosis and senescence.
