Question

The fused ring steroid nucleus of cholesterol is shown below. add atoms as necessary to show the entire structure of cholesterol.

Answer 1

Cholesterol is an alicyclic compound whose basic structure includes the perhydrocyclopentanophenanthrene nucleus which has the four fused rings of the typical sterols and cholesterol.

 

Cholesterol has 4 fused hydrocarbon rings that form the steroid nucleus and an 8-carbon branched hydrocarbon chain is attached to C-17 of the D-ring. The Ring A has a hydroxyl group at C-3 and ring B has a double bond in between C-5 and C-6.

 

In this structure, there are four rings fused together, in which three rings are six-membered rings and one ring is a five-membered ring. Moreover, one ring contains a double bond.

 

The complete structure with the added atoms is shown in the attachment.