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Insulin is a peptide hormone that is critical for managing the body's metabolism. Insulin is released by the pancreas when blood sugar levels rise, and it has many effects that broadly promote the absorption and storage of sugars, including lipogenesis.
This page is the template for the metabolic pathways template. This template should be used to illustrate the general 'shape' of metabolism within the cell.. This template is part of the Metabolic Pathways task force.
Lipid metabolism is the synthesis and degradation of lipids in cells, involving the breakdown and storage of fats for energy and the synthesis of structural and functional lipids, such as those involved in the construction of cell membranes. In animals, these fats are obtained from food and are synthesized by the liver. [1]
Blood lipids (or blood fats) are lipids in the blood, either free or bound to other molecules. They are mostly transported in a phospholipid capsule, and the type of protein embedded in this outer shell determines the fate of the particle and its influence on metabolism. Examples of these lipids include cholesterol and triglycerides.
Cell membranes require high levels of cholesterol – typically an average of 20% cholesterol in the whole membrane, increasing locally in raft areas up to 50% cholesterol (- % is molecular ratio). [6] It associates preferentially with sphingolipids (see diagram) in cholesterol-rich lipid rafts areas of the membranes in eukaryotic cells. [7]
Cholesterol is the principal sterol of all higher animals, distributed in body tissues, especially the brain and spinal cord, and in animal fats and oils. [3] [4]Cholesterol is biosynthesized by all animal cells [citation needed] and is an essential structural and signaling component of animal cell membranes.
All cells use and rely on fats and cholesterol as building blocks to create the multiple membranes that cells use both to control internal water content and internal water-soluble elements and to organize their internal structure and protein enzymatic systems. The outer shell of lipoprotein particles have the hydrophilic groups of phospholipids ...
[2] [3] The most familiar type of animal sterol is cholesterol, which is vital to the structure of the cell membrane, and functions as a precursor to fat-soluble vitamins and steroid hormones. While technically alcohols, sterols are classified by biochemists as lipids ( fats in the broader sense of the term).