Sirtuins as regulators of metabolism and healthspan

Sirtuins are a family of deacetylases that target histones and proteins in several cellular compartments. Sirtuins are crucial regulators of energy homeostasis, as they detect physiological changes in energy levels and modulate glucose and lipid metabolism accordingly. As such, they affect health in a pleiotropic manner. Since the beginning of the century, the mammalian sirtuin protein family (comprising SIRT1–SIRT7) has received much attention for its regulatory role, mainly in metabolism and ageing. Sirtuins act in different cellular compartments: they deacetylate histones and several transcriptional regulators in the nucleus, but also specific proteins in other cellular compartments, such as in the cytoplasm and in mitochondria. As a consequence, sirtuins regulate fat and glucose metabolism in response to physiological changes in energy levels, thereby acting as crucial regulators of the network that controls energy homeostasis and as such determines healthspan.