Evolutionary conserved reciprocal senescence and tumor suppressor signals limit lifetime cancer

Cellular senescence features a durable exit from the cell cycle triggered by stress or carcinogens. The INK4 locus is inactivated in various cancers, yet in senescence, p16 Ink4a is activated. Whether senescence is tumor-suppressing or -promoting remains a conundrum. We discovered an evolutionally-conserved Vertebrata INK4-homolog. This ink4ab triggers senescence upon oxidative- and/or carcinogenic-stress. Adult Ink4ab-deficient animals failed to activate senescence and developed spontaneous cancers. Combined Ink4ab and Tp53 deficiency revealed a reciprocal senescence and apoptosis regulation, controlling tumorigenesis, including retinoblastoma. INK4-hematopoietic-deficient mice exhibited p19 Arf -dependent enhanced senescence-like phenotypes, uncontrolled cell proliferation, defective stem cell differentiation, and splenomegaly, with single-splenocytes spatially-enriched in senescence-associated secretory profiles. Our studies reveal the evolutionary origin of paradigms co-regulating senescence and tumor suppression and offer strategies to exploit these reciprocal pathways for cancer prevention and therapy.