Sirtuins

Sir2 family
Crystallographic structure of yeast sir2 (rainbow colored cartoon, N-terminus = blue, C-terminus = red) complexed with ADP (space-filling model, carbon = white, oxygen = red, nitrogen = blue, phosphorus = orange) and a histone H4 peptide (magenta) containing an acylated lysine residue (displayed as spheres).
Identifiers
Symbol	SIR2
Pfam	PF02146
Pfam clan	CL0085
InterPro	IPR003000
PROSITE	PS50305
SCOP	1j8f
SUPERFAMILY	1j8f
Available protein structures: Pfam structures PDB RCSB PDB; PDBe; PDBj PDBsum structure summary

Sirtuin or Sir2 proteins are a class of proteins that possess either mono-ADP-ribosyltransferase, or deacylase activity, including deacetylase, desuccinylase, demalonylase, demyristoylase and depalmitoylase activity. Sirtuins regulate important biological pathways in bacteria, archaea and eukaryotes. The name Sir2 comes from the yeast gene 'silent mating-type information regulation 2', the gene responsible for cellular regulation in yeast.

Sirtuins have been implicated in influencing a wide range of cellular processes like aging, transcription, apoptosis, inflammation and stress resistance, as well as energy efficiency and alertness during low-calorie situations. Sirtuins can also control circadian clocks and mitochondrial biogenesis.

Yeast Sir2 and some, but not all, sirtuins are protein deacetylases. Unlike other known protein deacetylases, which simply hydrolyze acetyl-lysine residues, the sirtuin-mediated deacetylation reaction couples lysine deacetylation to NAD hydrolysis. This hydrolysis yields O-acetyl-ADP-ribose, the deacetylated substrate and nicotinamide, itself an inhibitor of sirtuin activity. The dependence of sirtuins on NAD links their enzymatic activity directly to the energy status of the cell via the cellular NAD:NADH ratio, the absolute levels of NAD, NADH or nicotinamide or a combination of these variables.

Whereas bacteria and archaea encode either one or two sirtuins, eukaryotes encode several sirtuins in their genomes. In yeast, roundworms, and fruitflies, sir2 is the name of one of the sirtuin-type proteins (see table below). This research started in 1991 by Leonard Guarente of MIT. Mammals possess seven sirtuins (SIRT1-7) that occupy different subcellular compartments such as the nucleus (SIRT1, -2, -6, -7), cytoplasm (SIRT1 and SIRT2) and the mitochondria (SIRT3, -4 and -5).