A full length cDNA for human 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl coenzyme A reductase, the membrane-bound glycoprotein that regulates cholesterol synthesis, was isolated from a human fetal adrenal cDNA library. The nucleotide sequence of this cDNA shows that the human reductase is 888 amino acids long and shares a high degree of homology with the hamster enzyme. The amino-terminal membrane-bound domain is the most conserved region between the two species (7 substitutions out of 339 amino acids). This region, which is predicted to span the endoplasmic reticulum membrane seven times, mediates accelerated degradation of reductase in the presence of sterols. The carboxyl-terminal catalytic domain is also highly conserved (22 substitutions out of 439 amino acids). However, the linker region between these two domains has diverged (32 substitutions out of 110 amino acids). Conservation of the structure of the membrane-bound domain in HMG-CoA reductase supports the hypothesis that sterol-regulated degradation is an important mechanism for suppression of reductase activity and for regulation of cholesterol metabolism in humans as well as in hamsters.