To Make a Cholesterol

(To the tune of “When Johnny Comes Marching Home”) / Recording by David Simmons

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