Figure 3.

Possible mechanism of peroxisomal regulation during steroidogenesis. According to the literature, the steroidogenic pathway is disturbed under peroxisomal-deficient conditions. The underlying mechanism may at least partly involve inhibition of the rate-limiting enzyme StAR. Excessive oxidative stress caused by peroxisomal deficiency can directly lead to the inhibition of steroid synthesis; moreover, the mitochondrial membrane potential is disturbed under peroxisomal-deficient conditions, which deteriorates StAR-mediated cholesterol transport. The specific molecular mechanism of StAR inhibition needs to be clarified in the future. Additionally, the lipid structure and lipid composition of the cell membrane are closely related to the activity of adenylyl cyclase (AC) and G protein-coupled receptor signalling. We hypothesize that peroxisomes may be involved in upstream cell signalling for hormone production by regulating the membrane composition of steroidogenic cells. Red line stands for “inhibit” while black line means “promote.”