Publications

• A comprehensive machine-readable view of the mammalian cholesterol biosynthesis pathway.

  Mazein A., Watterson S., Hsieh W.Y., Griffiths W.J., Ghazal P.

  Cholesterol biosynthesis serves as a central metabolic hub for numerous biological processes in health and disease. A detailed, integrative single-view description of how the cholesterol pathway is structured and how it interacts with other pathway systems is lacking in the existing literature. He ... >> More

  Cholesterol biosynthesis serves as a central metabolic hub for numerous biological processes in health and disease. A detailed, integrative single-view description of how the cholesterol pathway is structured and how it interacts with other pathway systems is lacking in the existing literature. Here we provide a systematic review of the existing literature and present a detailed pathway diagram that describes the cholesterol biosynthesis pathway (the mevalonate, the Kandutch-Russell and the Bloch pathway) and shunt pathway that leads to 24(S),25-epoxycholesterol synthesis. The diagram has been produced using the Systems Biology Graphical Notation (SBGN) and is available in the SBGN-ML format, a human readable and machine semantically parsable open community file format. << Less

  Biochem. Pharmacol. 86:56-66(2013) [PubMed] [EuropePMC]

  This publication is cited by 30 other entries.

• Mutations in the human SC4MOL gene encoding a methyl sterol oxidase cause psoriasiform dermatitis, microcephaly, and developmental delay.

  He M., Kratz L.E., Michel J.J., Vallejo A.N., Ferris L., Kelley R.I., Hoover J.J., Jukic D., Gibson K.M., Wolfe L.A., Ramachandran D., Zwick M.E., Vockley J.

  Defects in cholesterol synthesis result in a wide variety of symptoms, from neonatal lethality to the relatively mild dysmorphic features and developmental delay found in individuals with Smith-Lemli-Opitz syndrome. We report here the identification of mutations in sterol-C4-methyl oxidase–like ge ... >> More

  Defects in cholesterol synthesis result in a wide variety of symptoms, from neonatal lethality to the relatively mild dysmorphic features and developmental delay found in individuals with Smith-Lemli-Opitz syndrome. We report here the identification of mutations in sterol-C4-methyl oxidase–like gene (SC4MOL) as the cause of an autosomal recessive syndrome in a human patient with psoriasiform dermatitis, arthralgias, congenital cataracts, microcephaly, and developmental delay. This gene encodes a sterol-C4-methyl oxidase (SMO), which catalyzes demethylation of C4-methylsterols in the cholesterol synthesis pathway. C4-Methylsterols are meiosis-activating sterols (MASs). They exist at high concentrations in the testis and ovary and play roles in meiosis activation. In this study, we found that an accumulation of MASs in the patient led to cell overproliferation in both skin and blood. SMO deficiency also substantially altered immunocyte phenotype and in vitro function. MASs serve as ligands for liver X receptors α and β(LXRα and LXRβ), which are important in regulating not only lipid transport in the epidermis, but also innate and adaptive immunity. Deficiency of SMO represents a biochemical defect in the cholesterol synthesis pathway, the clinical spectrum of which remains to be defined. << Less

  J. Clin. Invest. 121:976-984(2011) [PubMed] [EuropePMC]

  This publication is cited by 7 other entries.