STUDIES ON THE SITE OF THE FEEDBACK CONTROL OF CHOLESTEROL SYNTHESIS*†

Abstract

Despite wide variations in dietary cholesterol, most animals are capable of maintaining the cho- lesterol of their plasma at relatively constant levels. Insight into the means by which this homeo- statis of plasma cholesterol is accomplished was first provided when Gould and associates (3-5), Tom- kins, Sheppard and Chaikoff (6) and Frantz, Schneider and Hinkelman (7) independently dem- onstrated that cholesterol synthesis in the liver varies inversely with the level of dietary choles- terol. Since all endogenous plasma cholesterol probably originates in the liver (8-10), it is likely that the constancy of plasma cholesterol is the result of this reciprocal relationship between dietary cholesterol and hepatic cholesterogenesis.