Preparation of Estrogens, Androgens, and Progestins

The steroids as a class represent a structurally complex problem for the synthetic chemist. Even a relatively simple compound such as estrone possesses three ring fusions, two of which can lead to isomers and four chiral centers (identified below by ). Only one of the sixteen possible isomers possesses the desired activity in satisfactory potency. 

Although all the main classes of steroids have now been attained by total synthesis, most drugs are in fact, as noted above, prepared by partial synthesis from natural products that contain the steroid nucleus. The bulk of the world s supply of steroid starting material is derived by differing chemical routes from only two species of plants the Mexican yam, a species of 

Dioscorea, and the humble soybean. The advantage of using plants rather than valuable domestic animals as raw material is fairly obvious. 

The structurally simplest steroids, the aromatic A ring estrogens, have ironically proven most difficultly accessible because this aromatic ring is not found in any of the plant sterols available in commercial quantities. The main task of partial synthesis from naturally occurring material thus becomes 

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