Regulation of cholesterol metabolism: the work of Robert D. Simoni. 1988, 1999.

Robert D. Simoni began his foray into the world of lipids and membranes when he was in graduate school at the University of California, Davis, studying fatty lipid synthesis in plants with Paul Stumpf. Fewer than ten years later, Simoni started his own research program at Stanford University, exploring the biochemistry of cell membrane structure and function. The two (JBC) Classics articles reprinted here review some of Simoni's research on the regulation of 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl-coenzyme A reductase, which catalyzes the rate-limiting step in the synthesis of sterol and non-sterol isoprenoid products. The Membrane Domain of 3-Hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl-coenzyme A Reductase Confers Endoplasmic Reticulum Localization and Sterol-regulated Degradation onto β-Galactosidase (Skalnik, D. G., Narita, H., Kent, C., and Simoni, R. D. (1988) 263, 6836–6841) Oligomerization State Influences the Degradation Rate of 3-Hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl-CoA Reductase (Cheng, H. H., Xu, L., Kumagai, H., and Simoni, R. D. (1999) 274, 17171–17178)