Abstract
BUTENANDT1 isolated the first crystalline androgen, androsterone, from human urine and determined its structure. The 3α-hydroxysteroids, androsterone (androstan-3α-ol-17-one) and etiocholan-3α-ol-17-one, are the principal metabolites of endogenous androgens and of administered testosterone2. The enzymatic mechanisms responsible for these interconversions have only been partly identified, and in particular the direct enzymatic interconversion of 19-carbon 3-ketosteroids and 3α-hydroxysteroids has not been previously demonstrated. We wish to describe the isolation and purification of a steroid-induced (adaptive) 3α-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase of bacterial origin which catalyses freely reversible interconversions of the type: 
where DPN+ and DPNH refer to oxidized and reduced diphosphopyridine nucleotides respectively.
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References
Butenandt, A., Z. angew. Chem., 44, 905 (1931). Butenandt, A., and Tscherning, K., Z. physiol. Chem., 229, 167 (1934).
Callow, N. H., Biochem. J., 33, 559 (1939). Dorfman, R. I., Cook, J. W., and Hamilton, J. B., J. Biol. Chem., 130, 285 (1939). Dobriner, K., and Lieberman, S., in Gordon, E. S., “A Symposium on Steroid Hormones”, 46 (University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, 1950).
Talalay, P., Dobson, M. M., and Tapley, D. F., Nature, 170, 620 (1952).
Talalay, P., and Dobson, M. M., J. Biol. Chem., 205, 823 (1953).
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TALALAY, P., MARCUS, P. Enzymatic Formation of 3α-Hydroxysteroids. Nature 173, 1189–1190 (1954). https://doi.org/10.1038/1731189a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/1731189a0
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