Abstract
While steroid hormones are well-recognized signaling molecules that bind to steroid hormone receptors there is a gap in our knowledge regarding other sterol molecules, particularly the intermediates of cholesterol synthesis. Lanosterol is the first sterol in the cholesterol synthesis pathway and theoretically, 72 different sterols can be formed before cholesterol is produced. These sterols are similar molecules by chemical properties and differ mostly by the number of double bonds and substituents on the sterol ring. While textbooks still claim that sterol intermediates of the cholesterol biosynthetic pathway are dedicated to cholesterol, there is increasing evidence that each of these sterols has a biological role, but not all have yet been discovered. In this chapter, we review the current knowledge about the post-lanosterol sterols of cholesterol synthesis and review the directions of current research in this field.
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Skubic, C., Rozman, D. (2020). Sterols from the Post-Lanosterol Part of Cholesterol Synthesis: Novel Signaling Players. In: Rozman, D., Gebhardt, R. (eds) Mammalian Sterols . Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39684-8_1
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