Intercellular adhesion molecule-1 （ICAM-1） plays an important role in the recruitment of leukocytes to the endothelium, which causes inflammation and initiation of atherosclerosis. We have previously shown that endothelium-specific over-expression of class III deacetylase SIRT1 decreases atherosclerosis. We therefore addressed the hypothesis that SIRT1 suppresses ICAM-1 expression in the endothelial cells. Here, we found that expression of SIRT1 and ICAM-1 was significantly induced by PMA and ionomycin （PMA/Io） in human umbilical vein endothelial cells （HUVECs）. Adenovirus-mediated over-expression of SIRT1 significantly inhibited PMA/Io-induced ICAM-1 expression （RNAi） resulted in increased expression of ICAM-1 in HUVECs in HUVECs. Knockdown of SIRT1 by RNA interference Luciferase report assay showed that over-expression of SIRT1 suppressed ICAM-1 promoter activity both in basic and in PMA/Io-induced conditions. We further found that SIRT1 was involved in transcription complex binding on the ICAM-1 promoter by chromatin immunoprecipitation （CHIP） assays. Furthermore, SIRT1 RNAi increased NF-~：B p65 binding ability to the ICAM-1 promoter by ChIP assays. Overall, these data suggests that SIRT1 inhibits ICAM-1 expression in endothelial cells, which may contribute to its anti-atherosclerosis effect.
