THE adrenal gland produces a hormone which is essential to life. During the last two years, several workers have succeeded in isolating, from purified preparations of the cortical hormone, a number of crystalline compounds. Among these substances corticosterone and dehydro-corticosterone possess the greatest biological activity. The structures (I) and (II) were proposed for corticosterone and its dehydroderivative1,2. These formulæ were not definitely proved, but were chiefly based on the assumption that corticosterone might possess a constitution similar to some of the above-mentioned compounds, which have been isolated from the adrenal gland and which have been found to contain one more atom of oxygen in their molecules. These substances, which can be designated as the C21-O5-group, contain the sterol ring-system since they can be converted into the hydrocarbon androstane3. The suggestion that corticosterone contains the same ring-system has so far not been supported by any experimental evidence.
肾上腺分泌一种对生命至关重要的激素。在过去的两年中,一些研究人员成功地从纯化的皮质激素制剂中分离出了一些结晶化合物。在这些物质中,
皮质酮和脱氢
皮质酮具有最强的
生物活性。
皮质酮及其脱氢衍
生物的结构(I)和(II)已被提出1,2。这些结构式尚未得到明确证实,但主要是基于这样一种假设,即
皮质酮可能具有与上述某些化合物相似的结构,这些化合物已从肾上腺中分离出来,并发现它们的分子中多了一个氧原子。这些物质可称为 C21-O5 组,含有
甾醇环系统,因为它们可以转化为碳氢化合物和雄烷3。到目前为止,
皮质酮含有相同环系统的说法还没有得到任何实验证据的支持。