The role of mammalian sirtuins in cancer metabolism

Metabolic reprogramming has recently emerged as a key feature of cancer cells, which need to rewire their cellular metabolism in order to sustain their faster proliferation and growth. New insight into the molecular mechanisms governing this metabolic reprogramming has implicated mammalian sirtuins as important regulators of cancer metabolism. Sirtuins are NAD+-dependent protein deacylases involved in a variety of biological functions, including life span and health span regulation, genomic stability, tumorigenesis, inflammation, and metabolism. Due to the requirement of NAD+ for their function, sirtuins can act as sensors of the metabolic state of the cell and regulate core metabolic pathways in response to cellular stresses, thus being good candidates to control the reprogramming of cellular metabolism that occurs during tumorigenesis. Here, we summarize our current knowledge of the roles of mammalian sirtuins in cancer metabolism, and discuss their implication in controlling this metabolic shift during aging and aging-associated cancers.