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Steroid hormones such as estradiol and testosterone are built on a shared hydrocarbon skeleton. How is that skeleton described?
AIt has one long carbon chain
BIt has six repeating carbon rings
CIt has four fused rings
DIt has two phosphate-linked chains
Answer & Solution
Correct answer: C. It has four fused rings
1. Steroid hormones are an important class of small hydrophobic ligands.
2. Steroids are lipids that have a hydrocarbon skeleton with four fused rings.
3. Different steroids have different functional groups attached to this same carbon skeleton.
4. A single unbranched chain or a phosphate-linked structure does not match the four-fused-ring description given for steroids.
_Source: OpenStax Biology (1st ed., CC BY 4.0), Ch 9 "Cell Communication", section Signaling Molecules_
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