BISC 220Lg Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Statin, Choline, Micelle
18 Jan 2016
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Document Summary
The choline on a phospholipid allows the molecule to ionize. When we look at cellular membranes, they are made up of phospholipid bilayers. Some pharmaceutical companies take advantage of the characteristics of micelles (one layer of phospholipids arranged with the hydrophobic tails pointed inward) to package insoluble drugs for effective distribution: steroids: cholesterol. Statins (common drug to combat high cholesterol) don"t act on dietary cholesterol, they reduce the synthesis of more cholesterol: cholesterol can insert itself into membranes because it too has a hydrophobic and hydrophilic half. This means that it is the basic building block to hormones like estradiol and testosterone. Depicted is testosterone on the left and estradiol on the right. It is interesting because the only difference between the two sex hormones is one extra proton at the bottom of the estradiol steroid, attached to the protruding oxygen atom.
