Figure 2

The boolean network model of the cholesterol regulatory pathway. (A) A network diagram of the model. All incoming connections into a node constitute AND logic except for cholesterol that has OR logic. A connection ending with a bar indicates NOT logic. The cholesterol synthesis pathway is shown from the precursor Acetyl-CoA to the final product cholesterol including feedback from cholesterol to SREBP-SCAP. Statins inhibits HMG-CoA reductase, and regulates the synthesis of cholesterol. After evaluating the specificity of each regulation to the statins perturbation, statins perturbation-specific regulations were colored with red. (B) A heat map of key intermediate products in the process of synthesizing cholesterol from Acetyl-CoA, together with the status of statins and HMG-CoA reductase. All 200 samples (100 without statins and 100 with statins) are shown.