CHEMICAL TRANSFORMATION OF STEROIDS BY ADRENAL PERFUSION: PERFUSION METHODS1

INTRODUCTION STUDIES were undertaken in 1944 to discover conditions requisite for the maintenance of corticosteroid biosynthesis in isolated, perfused adrenal glands. In 1949, having developed a perfusion apparatus (Hechter, 1948) and methods for extracting and estimating corticosteroids in blood, it was possible to demonstrate that perfused beef or sheep adrenals respond to adrenocorticotrophic hormone (ACTH) by a marked increase in the rate of corticosteroidogenesis (Hechter, 1949). Possessing an active adrenal preparation, studies were then undertaken to evaluate the enzymatic capacity of perfused adrenals to modify steroids. In the course of these studies using 11-desoxycorticosterone (DOC), suggestive evidence was obtained that the gland possessed a system for directly introducing an oxygen function at C-ll of the steroid nucleus. A few months later the dramatic therapeutic effects of cortisone in rheumatoid arthritis were reported by Hench, Kendall and their associates (1949). Since our findings rep...