AbstractsBiology & Animal Science

The importance of preparing hormonal steroids containing an isotopic carbon atom has been well recognized. As the metabolism of these substances is still poorly understood, the tracer technique should become a very useful tool to elucidate the pathways of the steroid hormones in the animal organism. We have been concerned with the problem of preparing labelled steroidal compounds in this laboratory. The main idea has been to open one of the rings in the steroid nucleus, introduce an isotopic carbon atom and regenerate the original steroid molecule for subsequent use. Among the four rings of the steroid molecule, ring A seemed to be the most desirable for this purpose because several important hormonal steroids, namely, testosterone, progesterone and corticoid hormones, possess a common ^3 unsaturated ketone group in ring A; thus a general method of labelling these steroids was sought.[...]