00:01
Look at the structure for cholesterol.
00:03
How is it similar to other membrane lipids? how is it different? okay, so let's compare it to phospholipids.
00:11
So a phospholipid has a molecule of cholesterol, of a phosphate group, and two fatty acid chains.
00:17
Clestrel has rings rather than chains.
00:23
So it is still a lipid, but it has rings of hydrocarbons instead of chains.
00:28
But so it's still a lipid, still large hydrophobic regions of carbon hydrogen bonds, just like phospholipids and their tails, but also just like phospholipids, it is amphipathic because of the tiny little hydroxyl group.
00:52
So cholesterol has multiple large ring structures and then just one little hydroxyl group that makes it amphipatophic.
00:58
So the hydroxyl group orients the molecule, so the hydroxyl group is facing the water, and the rest of the structure faces the inside of the membrane.
01:09
Okay, now if we look at the function of the cholesterol, we can see how fluidity is affected with and without it.
01:20
So what cholesterol does is it stabilizes it.
01:24
It stabilizes fluidity...