Research Perspective|Volume 3, Issue 4|pp 444—449

Resveratrol-activated SIRT1 in liver and pancreatic β-cells: a Janus head looking to the same direction of metabolic homeostasis

Laurène Vetterli¹, Pierre Maechler

¹Department of Cell Physiology and Metabolism, University of Geneva Medical Center, Geneva, Switzerland

Received: March 31, 2011Accepted: April 4, 2011Published: April 6, 2011

Copyright: © 2011 Vetterli 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

Sirtuins are energy sensors which mediate effects of calorie restriction-induced lifespan extension. The mammalian sirtuin homolog SIRT1 is a protein deacetylase playing a central role in metabolic homeostasis. SIRT1 is one of the targets of resveratrol, a polyphenol that has been shown to increase lifespan and to protect animal models against high-calorie diet induced obesity and insulin resistance. The beneficial effects of resveratrol mediated by SIRT1 activation can be contributed by different organs. Among them, the liver and pancreatic β-cells have been shown to be responsive to resveratrol in a SIRT1-dependent manner. Downstream of SIRT1, transcription factors being activated are tissue-specific, in turn inducing expression of metabolic genes in an apparent paradoxical way. In this review, we discuss specificities of SIRT1 effects in the liver versus pancreatic β-cells, ultimately converging towards metabolic homeostasis at the organism level.