The cellular senescence score (CSS) is a comprehensive biomarker to predict prognosis and assess senescence and immune characteristics in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC)

Cellular senescence, an emerging hallmark of cancer, has garnered increasing attention in recent years. However, its role in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is still not well understood. Furthermore, there is a lack of comprehensive biomarkers to predict prognosis and assess senescence and immune characteristics in HCC patients. To address these gaps, we conducted functional studies on bleomycin-induced senescent Hepa1-6 cells and developed the Cellular Senescence Score (CSS) based on four core cellular senescence-related genes. We found that the cellular senescence signaling pathway was enriched among the risk genes associated with unfavorable prognosis in HCC patients. The senescence associated secretory phenotype (SASP) derived from senescent Hepa1-6 cells induced an increase in CD3