H OH metabolites OH Review Cholesterol Metabolites 25-Hydroxycholesterol and 25-Hydroxycholesterol 3-Sulfate Are Potent Paired Regulators: From Discovery to Clinical Usage Yaping Wang 1, Xiaobo Li 2 and Shunlin Ren 1,* 1 Department of Internal Medicine, McGuire Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA 23249, USA;
[email protected] 2 Department of Physiology and Pathophysiology, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai 200032, China;
[email protected] * Correspondence:
[email protected]; Tel.: +1-(804)-675-5000 (ext. 4973) Abstract: Oxysterols have long been believed to be ligands of nuclear receptors such as liver × recep- tor (LXR), and they play an important role in lipid homeostasis and in the immune system, where they are involved in both transcriptional and posttranscriptional mechanisms. However, they are increas- ingly associated with a wide variety of other, sometimes surprising, cell functions. Oxysterols have also been implicated in several diseases such as metabolic syndrome. Oxysterols can be sulfated, and the sulfated oxysterols act in different directions: they decrease lipid biosynthesis, suppress inflammatory responses, and promote cell survival. Our recent reports have shown that oxysterol and oxysterol sulfates are paired epigenetic regulators, agonists, and antagonists of DNA methyl- transferases, indicating that their function of global regulation is through epigenetic modification. In this review, we explore our latest research of 25-hydroxycholesterol and 25-hydroxycholesterol 3-sulfate in a novel regulatory mechanism and evaluate the current evidence for these roles. Citation: Wang, Y.; Li, X.; Ren, S. Keywords: oxysterol sulfates; oxysterol sulfation; epigenetic regulators; 25-hydroxysterol; Cholesterol Metabolites 25-hydroxycholesterol 3-sulfate; 25-hydroxycholesterol 3,25-disulfate 25-Hydroxycholesterol and 25-Hydroxycholesterol 3-Sulfate Are Potent Paired Regulators: From Discovery to Clinical Usage.