The (patho)physiological roles of the individual deacylase activities of a sirtuin

Since the discovery of the sirtuin family founding member (i.e., the yeast silent information regulator 2 (sir2) protein) in 2000, more and more sirtuin proteins have been identified and are currently known to be present in organisms from all the three kingdoms of life (i.e., bacteria, archaea, and eukarya). Seven sirtuin proteins have been identified in mammals including humans, that is, SIRT1/2/3/4/5/6/7. Sirtuin proteins are a class of enzymes with primary catalytic activity being the β‐nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (β‐NAD+ or NAD+)‐dependent deacylation from the Nε‐acyl‐lysine residues on cellular proteins. Many sirtuins (e.g., human SIRT1/2/3/4/5/6/7) have been found to each possess multiple individual deacylase activities acting on Nε‐acyl‐lysine substrates with different acyl groups ranging from the simple formyl and acetyl to the more complex groups like succinyl and myristoyl; however, our current knowledge on the (patho)physiological roles of these individual deacylase activities is still limited, which could be due to the currently still thin research toolbox for investigation (i.e., the deacylase‐selective sirtuin mutant and inhibitor/activator). In this article, an updated account on the subject matter will be presented with biochemical and medicinal chemistry perspectives. An account on the currently limited knowledge generated with a still thin repertoire of genetic/chemical tools on the (patho)physiological roles of the individual deacylase activities of sirtuins is presented, calling for an expanded research to ultimately sort out the (patho)physiological roles of all the deacylase activities indicated in this figure.