Abstract
Summary
Guinea pig liver homogenates reduce androstane-3, 17-dione to androsterone, epiandrosterone, androstan-17β-ol-3-one and androstane-3a, 17β-diol. The latter two compounds were observed only in trace amounts when addition of co-factors to the incubation mixture produced a marked increase in the amount of metabolites formed. Anaerobic conditions had no effect on the conversion produced by DPN. FDP and Na. The system which produced epiandrosterone exhibited an optimum pH of about 6.7. The formation of the other metabolites, however, was not affected by changes in pH. Approximately three-fourths of the ability to reduce androstane-3, 17-dione was in the supernatant fraction of homogenates centrifuged at 1500 x g.
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