title: Diverse and dynamic functions of the Sir silencing complex.
abstract: The yeast Sir protein complex has been implicated in transcriptional silencing and suppression of recombination. The Sir complex creates structured chromosomal domains at telomeres, silent mating-type loci and ribosomal DNA to invoke these functional states. Mechanistic insights into the function of Sir proteins implicate a range of activities in yeast, including repair of DNA double-strand breaks, regulation of the mitotic cell cycle, meiosis and ageing. I speculate that the Sir proteins may be capable of enzymatic modification of chromatin and other substrates, which enables them to carry out a broad range of cellular functions.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. leng@mit.edu
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Guarente
mesh_terms: D002453:Cell Cycle / Q000235:genetics; D002843:Chromatin / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D004260:DNA Repair / Q000235:genetics; D004268:DNA-Binding Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D005656:Fungal Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D015966:Gene Expression Regulation, Fungal; D020868:Gene Silencing; D006655:Histone Deacetylases; D012091:Repetitive Sequences, Nucleic Acid / Q000235:genetics; D038281:Silent Information Regulator Proteins, Saccharomyces cerevisiae; D056565:Sirtuin 2; D037761:Sirtuins; D016615:Telomere / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D015534:Trans-Activators / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D015003:Yeasts / Q000166:cytology / Q000201:enzymology / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D002843:Chromatin; D004268:DNA-Binding Proteins; D005656:Fungal Proteins; D038281:Silent Information Regulator Proteins, Saccharomyces cerevisiae; D015534:Trans-Activators; C087778:SIR2 protein, S cerevisiae; D056565:Sirtuin 2; D037761:Sirtuins; D006655:Histone Deacetylases