Abstract
Summary
Adrenal slices from rats pre-treated with Triparanol produce less total blue tetrazolium positive steroids in vitro than do control slices. At the same time, however, adrenals from Triparanol treated animals incorporate significantly more added progesterone-C14 into cortical hormones. These data indicate that the conversion of desmosterol to progesterone becomes a rate limiting factor in corticoid biosynthesis in the adrenal glands of Triparanol treated rats and that Triparanol does not specifically inhibit corticoid synthesis from progesterone. Measurement of the relative quantities of the different cortical steroids indicates that bio-synthetic pathways leading to aldosterone production are favored when endogenous cholesterol levels are significantly depleted in the adrenal gland.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.