| The structure of cholesterol is shown in Figure 16.1. It has a molecular weight of 386 Da and contains 27 carbon atoms, of which 17 are incorporated into four fused rings (the perhydrocyclopentano-phenanthrene nucleus), two are in angular methyl groups attached at the junctions of rings AB and CD and eight are in the peripheral side chain. Cholesterol is almost entirely composed of carbon and hydrogen atoms; there is a solitary hydroxyl group attached to carbon atom 3. It is also almost completely saturated, having just one double bond between carbon atoms 5 and 6. In three-dimensional terms the ring structure of cholesterol is approximately planar.
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