To Make a Cholesterol

(To the tune of "When Johnny Comes Marching Home")
Copyright © 2010 Kevin Ahern

I am very pleased that David Simmons has made a professional recording of this song (complete song downloadable HERE) and others can be downloaded HERE. You will need to unzip the file to release the MP3. I am providing all songs for free download, but hope you will support this effort by purchasing my Metabolic Melody albums or calendar at the URLs at the bottom of the lyrics to this song.

Some things that you can build with acetyl-CoAs
Are joined together partly thanks to thiolase
They come together 1-2-3
Six carbons known as H-M-G
And you’re on your way
To make a cholesterol

To synthesize a mevalonate in the cell
Requires reducing HMG-CoA, as well
The enzyme is a RE-ductase
Controlled in allosteric ways
When the cell's impelled
To make a cholesterol.
 
The mevalonate made in metabolic schemes
Gets decarboxylated down to isoprenes
They’re linked together willy-nil
To build a PP-geranyl
In the cells’ routines
To make a cholesterol
 
A single step links farnesyls but that’s not all
The squalene rearranges to lanosterol
From that there’s nineteen steps to go
Before the sterol’s apropos
Which you must recall
To make a cholesterol
 
The regulation of the scheme’s complex in ways
Inhibited by feedback of the RE-duc-tase
And statins mimic so they say
The look of HMG-CoA
So we sing their praise
And not make cholesterol

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