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. 2017 Dec 6;7:17050. doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-17138-y

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© The Author(s) 2017

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

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The mevalonate pathway leads to cholesterol synthesis. Acetoacetyl CoA and acetyl CoA are converted to squalene, which is subsequently converted to cholesterol. Important enzymes in the pathway include 3-hydroxy-3-methyl-glutaryl-coenzyme A reductase (HMGCR), farnesyl pyrophosphate synthase (FDPS), and farnesyl diphosphate farnesyltransferase 1 (FDFT1, also commonly called squalene synthase). Each of these enzymes can be inhibited by statins, bisphosphonates, and zaragozic acid, respectively; cholesterol can be depleted using methyl-β-cyclodextrin (MBCD).