Sirtuins and aging

Abstract

Sirtuins are a family of highly conserved genes widely distributed in organisms ranging from bacteria to humans. Mounting evidence has revealed the important role of sirtuins in a variety of biological processes, including transcription regulation, apoptosis, DNA repair, metabolism, and more prominently, aging. Sirtuins regulate lifespan in evolutionarily diverse species partly through modulating calorie restriction pathways. Sirtuins link the nutritional status of the cell to transcription regulation through their nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+)-dependent deacetylase and/or ADP-ribosyltransferase. The unique features of sirtuins make them ideal targets for discovery of prolongevity compounds or aging interventions. This chapter will review the functions of sirtuins in aging and aging interventions related to sirtuins.