Accelerated ageing in COPD: New insights and targets

COPD is characterised by acceleration of the ageing process in lung parenchymaand airways and is commonly associated with comorbidities, such as cardiovascular and metabolic diseases, which also may share these mechanisms. There is now a much better understanding the signalling pathways and cellular events involved in ageing, including evidence of cellular senescence with telomere shortening, activation of phosphoinositide 3-kinase(PI3K)-mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) signalling, impaired autophagy, mitochondrial dysfunction, stem cell exhaustion, epigenetic changes and abnormal microRNA profiles1.