Strong expression of a longevity-related protein, SIRT1, in Bowen's disease

The class III histone deacetylase (HDAC), SIRT1, is a mammalian homologue of the Saccharomyces cerevisiae chromatin-silencing factor Sir2 that regulates longevity. SIRT1 regulates cell survival via deacetylation of p53 and forkhead transcription factors, and overexpression of SIRT1 is reported to be essential for cell growth and survival in some kinds of cancer. To elucidate the role of SIRT1 in human skin carcinogenesis, we have examined SIRT1 protein expression in 20 cases each of squamous cell carcinoma (SCC), basal cell carcinoma (BCC), Bowen's disease (BD), and actinic keratosis (AK) by immunohistochemical analysis. Overexpression of SIRT1 is frequently observed in all kinds of non-melanoma skin cancers included in this study. In particular, strong expression was observed in all cases of BD. In addition, no obvious difference between AK and SCC was observed in the expression of SIRT1, suggesting that overexpression of SIRT1 may have some relevance to the early stage of skin carcinogenesis. We suppose that SIRT1 could be one of the critical targets for future therapy with the aim of inhibiting cell proliferation and promoting apoptosis in non-melanoma skin cancers.