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Review
. 2002 Sep;110(5):583-90.
doi: 10.1172/JCI16381.

Cholesterol in health and disease

Affiliations
Review

Cholesterol in health and disease

Ira Tabas. J Clin Invest. 2002 Sep.
No abstract available

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Biosynthesis of steroids in various species. Adapted from ref. with permission of the editors and publisher.
Figure 2
Figure 2
(a) Structural and space-filling models of cholesterol and lanosterol. Reproduced from ref. with permission of the author and journal. (b) Space-filling model of cholesterol interacting with a phospholipid molecule. Reproduced from ref. with permission of the author and journal.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Biosynthesis of cholesterol-derived hormones. Adapted from ref. with permission of the editors and publisher.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Structure of sterol-related molecules with unusual biological functions. See text for details.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Cholesterol in atherosclerosis. The images show proximal aorta atherosclerotic lesions from the atherosclerosis-susceptible apoE knockout mice fed a cholesterol- and saturated fat–enriched diet for 25 weeks. (a and b) Adjacent sections from the same lesion stained with hematoxylin (a) or oil red O (b). The asterisk in a marks an area filled with cholesterol crystals. The bright red-orange staining in b shows areas rich in neutral lipids, most likely cholesteryl ester inclusions in macrophage foam cells and cholesteryl ester-rich emulsions in extracellular regions of the lesion. Areas of the lesion that stain poorly with oil red O are often rich in free (i.e., unesterified) cholesterol. (c) Fluorescence microscopy image of another atherosclerotic lesion stained with the fluorescent dye filipin (shown as blue in this image), which binds specifically to areas enriched in free cholesterol. The bright filipin staining in almost the entire diseased intima indicates that advanced atherosclerotic lesions in this model are very rich in free cholesterol.

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