Cell senescence is characterized by the irreversible arrest of cell proliferation and has been implicated as one of the critical causes of Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, and other neurodegenerative diseases. Telomere dysfunction, oxidative stress, DNA damage, senescence-associated secretory phenotype, and mitochondrial dysfunction contribute to the development of cellular senescence. Telomerase reverse transcriptase (TERT), which is the catalytic subunit of telomerase, can counteract cellular senescence with telomerase RNA template in a telomere-dependent manner. In addition, TERT has also been confirmed to exert extra-telomeric and neuroprotective roles in neurodegenerative diseases. In this review, we focus on the close relationship between cellular senescence and neurodegenerative diseases, and in particular, we elucidate the neuroprotective role of TERT in neurodegenerative diseases.
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