Corticosteroids Steroid sapogenins

At the end of the I970 s the microbial processes for side chain degradation of cholesterol and sitosterol to androsta-1,4-diene-3,17-dione, androst-4-ene-3,17-dione, and its 9a-hydroxy derivative had been developed to such a state of industrial efficiency that these new raw material sources now serve for the economic production of most of the medically important S. The only exceptions are some corticosteroids, especially those with substituents at C-16, which are still prepared from steroid sapogenins, and a number of 19-nor-S. for which high-yield total syntheses are available. For details on the analysis of S., see Lit.. ... 

Sex hormones, corticosteroids, and sapogenins are the most important medium polar steroids and numerous solvent systems have been used to separate them. Based on the work of Hara and Mebe (18), the following conclusions can be drawn. Medium polar steroids can be separated using a medium polar system most of the applicable solvent systems contain one or two nonpolar solvents such as hexane, benzene or toluene and one medium polar solvent, e.g., chloroform, acetone, etc. 

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