“…According to these models, the inner surface of the channel formed by the TSPO molecule would present a hydrophilic but uncharged pathway, allowing amphiphilic cholesterol molecules to cross the outer mitochondrial membrane (Papadopoulos et al, 1997(Papadopoulos et al, , 2006Veenman et al, 2007). At cellular levels TSPO is present in virtually all of the cells of the cardiovascular system, where they appear to take part in the responses to various challenges that an organism and its cardiovascular system face (Veenman & Gavish, 2006), including atherosclerosis and accompanying symptoms (Onyimba et al, 2011;Bird et al, 2010;Dimitrova-Shumkovska et al, 2010a,b,c, 2012.…”