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Steroid-converting enzymes on the move

The "golden age" of steroid biochemistry started in the 1930s with the advent of the Zimmermann reaction for estimation of 17-ketosteroids, and somewhat later the Bush systems for paper chromatography. It ended in the 1980s with the completed refinement of various specific methods such as radioimmunoassays, enzyme immunoassays, high-pressure liquid chromatography and gas chromatography/mass spectrometry. In the middle of this period, in 1965, the awesome book entitled "Metabolism of Steroid Hormones" by Ralph Dorfman and Frank Ungar appeared (1). It stimulated steroid research greatly, and still today is a highly valued "bible" and surprisingly accurate reference for workers in the field.

While tremendous progress had been made during these 40 or 50 years in the recognition of literally hundreds of biologically occurring or synthetic steroids, and of a number of genetically determined defects of the steroid biosynthesis causing, for example, congenital adrenal hyperplasia or male pseudohermaphroditism, not much was known