Emerging role of SIRT2 in non-small cell lung cancer

Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is one of the most devastating cancer types, accounting for >80% of lung cancer cases. The median relative survival time of patients with NSCLC is <1 year. Lysine acetylation is a major post-translational modification that is required for various biological processes, and abnormal protein acetylation is associated with various diseases, including NSCLC. Protein deacetylases are currently considered cancer permissive partly due to malignant cells being sensitive to deacetylase inhibition. Sirtuin 2 (SIRT2), a primarily cytosolic nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide-dependent class III protein deacetylase, has been shown to catalyze the removal of acetyl groups from a wide range of proteins, including tubulin, ribonucleotide reductase regulatory subunit M2 and glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase. In addition, SIRT2 is also known to possess lysine fatty deacylation activity. Physiologically, SIRT2 serves as a regulator of the cell cycle and of cellular metabolism. It has been shown to play important roles in proliferation, migration and invasion during carcinogenesis. It is notable that both oncogenic and tumor suppressive functions of SIRT2 have been described in NSCLC and other cancer types, suggesting a context-specific role of SIRT2 in cancer progression. In addition, inhibition of SIRT2 exhibits a broad anticancer effect, indicating its potential as a therapeutic for NSCLC tumors with high expression of SIRT2. However, due to the diverse molecular and genetic characteristics of NSCLC, the context-specific function of SIRT2 remains to be determined. The current review investigated the functions of SIRT2 during NSCLC progression with regard to its regulation of metabolism, stem cell-like features and autophagy.