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Aging and cancer are currently a main concern of modern society. Although they seem to be primarily different diseases, they both share a common characteristic-the activation of a cellular phenotype called senescence. Senescence is a cellular response to a stress signal. It was initially thought to be an end-point to a stress situation, where the cells lost their proliferative capacity. However, the evidence for a non-cell autonomous function for senescent cells has increasingly grown in the last decade. In fact, senescent cells secrete a variety of inflammatory proteins, matrix-degrading enzymes and growth factors named senescence-associated secretory phenotype (SASP), which alter the behavior of neighboring cells. 1 Integrins are cell surface adhesion receptors formed by an “a “and a “b” subunit. They identify changes in the extracellular space and mediate intracellular signaling, but they are also capable of …