Research Perspective|Volume 3, Issue 2|pp 162—167

SirT1 brings stemness closer to cancer and aging

Vincenzo Calvanese^1,², Mario F. Fraga^1,²

¹Department of Immunology and Oncology, Centro Nacional Biotecnología/CSIC, Cantoblanco, Madrid E-28049, Spain
²Cancer Epigenetics Laboratory, Instituto Universitario de Oncología del Principado de Asturias (IUOPA/HUCA), Universidad de Oviedo, 33006 Oviedo, Spain

Received: January 19, 2011Accepted: February 7, 2011Published: February 9, 2011

Copyright: © 2011 Calvanese et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Abstract

Sirtuin 1 acts in various cell processes, deacetylating both chromatin and non-histone proteins, and its role in cancer and aging has long been studied and debated. Here we discuss another aspect of SirT1 biology, its function as a stem cell pluripotency and differentiation regulator. We evaluate the implications of these findings in sirtuin inhibition-based cancer treatment and in the application of sirtuin activation for anti-aging therapy.