Mammalian sirtuins (SIRT1-7) are members of a highly conserved family of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+)-dependent protein deacetylases that regulate many biological processes including metabolism, genome stability, and transcription. Among the seven human sirtuins, SIRT7 is the least understood, to a large extent due to the lack of enzymatic activity in vitro. Here, we reported that SIRT7 can be activated by DNA to hydrolyze the acetyl group from lysine residues in vitro on histone peptides and histones in the chromatin context. Both N- and C- termini of SIRT7 are important for the DNA-activated deacetylase activity. The regulatory mechanism of SIRT7 is different from that of SIRT6, which also showed increased activity on chromatin substrates, but the deacetylase activity of SIRT6 on a peptide substrate cannot be activated by DNA. This finding provides an improved enzymatic activity assay of SIRT7 that will promote the development of SIRT7 modulators. Further investigation into the activation mechanism of SIRT7 by DNA could provide new insights into its biological function and help the development of sirtuin activators. © 2016 American Chemical Society.