We have examined the mechanisms of sterol-independent regulation of the expression of 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl coenzyme-A (HMG-CoA) reductase by mevalonate in Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells. Serum lipoproteins, 25-hydroxycholesterol, or mevalonate each repress HMG-CoA reductase activity by fivefold or more, and mevalonate lowers the rate of reductase synthesis by twofold. However, while the expression of the HMG-CoA reductase promoter construct, T42 delta CAT, in stable transfectants is also repressed by serum lipoproteins and 25-hydroxycholesterol, mevalonate is without effect. In addition, while 25-hydroxycholesterol reduces the steady-state level of endogenous HMG-CoA reductase mRNA by more than threefold, mevalonate again has no effect. Mevalonate does partially regulate the expression of both the artificial promoter construct pTK-Kx3-CAT, containing three copies of the sterol regulatory element, SRE-1, and the full-length LDL receptor promoter construct, pLDLRCAT-6500 as well as the expression of functional LDL receptors. This transcriptional regulation appears to be mediated by sterol end products generated from added mevalonate. In CHO cells starved for mevalonate due to a mutation in the biosynthetic pathway, addition of 20 mM mevalonate accelerates the rate of degradation of HMG-CoA reductase by threefold whether new sterol biosynthesis is blocked or not. In such cells, addition of 25-hydroxycholesterol, by itself, also decreases the half-life of reductase from 11.6 to 2.3 h. In contrast, in cells acutely treated with a reductase inhibitor, sterol-accelerated degradation of reductase is only observed in the presence of submillimolar level of mevalonate. We conclude that large concentrations of exogenous mevalonate fail to generate a transcriptional regulator of HMG-CoA reductase in CHO cells but do lead to the formation of translational regulator(s) of reductase synthesis. In contrast, sterol regulators derived from exogenous mevalonate appear to be capable of downregulating the LDL receptor promoter. We further conclude that in the absence of pretreatment with a reductase inhibitor, the regulatory signals generated by sterols and nonsterols for accelerated degradation of HMG-CoA reductase are mutually independent. However, the enzyme synthesized in the presence of reductase inhibitors appears to exhibit an obligatory corequirement for low-dose mevalonate for sterol-accelerated degradation.