Steroid corticoid

Cortisone is a hormone produced by the cortex of the adrenal glands. As with other adrenal corticoid steroids, administration of cortisone leads to an increased deposition of liver glycogen. Tt can remove features of rheumatoid arthritis, but does not check the underlying disease it is used in various diseases of the eye, and is an antiallergic and anlifibroplastic agent. 

Hydrocortisone and Prednisolone. Following the discovery of the antiinflammatory actions of cortisone (1) and cortisol (2), there was a need not only to develop highly efficient routes to the corticoids, but to discover novel stmctures with fewer side effects than those of the corticoids, eg, sodium and water retention, reduced carbohydrate tolerance (steroid diabetes), osteoporosis, and depressed host defense. 

The D-homo-corticoids represent the last group of antiinflammatory steroids worthy of mention (106). 

Oxidation of the 3-hydroxy-A systenli with manganese dioxide in refluxing benzene affords a moderate yield of the corresponding 4,6-dien-3-one. These vigorous conditions also suffice to cleave the corticoid side chain (17a,21-dihydroxy-20-ketones) to give 17-keto steroids. ... 

Selenium dioxide was first employed in steroid dehydrogenation for the direct formation of 12-ketones in corticoid synthesis. This dehydroge-... 

When in the late 1940 s the remarkable therapeutic effects of the glucocorticoids cortisone and hydrocortisone were discovered, new raw materials had to be developed to produce these complicated molecules, and new synthetic methods devised to convert either a 20-ketopregnane or 21-acetoxy-20-ketopregnane to the dihydroxyacetone side-chain characteristic of these corticoids. This latter challenge produced some extremely useful new organic chemical reactions, many of which have wider application outside of steroids. 

As is apparent at a glance, cortisone is an intricate molecule with a wealth of functionality. Steroid transformations in the corticoid series require serious strategic planning in order to provide the appropriate protecting groups and to introduce substituents in the proper order. It is therefore easy in a discussion of this chemistry to get lost in a welter of detail. 

Examination of the dates on the references to this chapter will quickly reveal that publications on the corticoids, as indeed all other steroids, reached a steep maximum in the late 1950s to about 1960. After that, publication dropped off to a comparative trickle. It should be kept in mind when examining... 

It was known for some time that even after the corticoids had been separated from crude extracts of the adrenal cortex, the remaining material, the so-called "amorphous fraction" still possessed considerable mineralocorticoid activity. Aldosterone (250), one of the last steroids to be isolated from this fraction, proved to be the active principle. This compound proved to be an extremely potent agent for the retention of salt, and thus water, in body fluids. An antagonist would be expected to act as a diuretic in those edematous states caused by excess sodium retention. Although aldosterone has been prepared by both total and partial synthesis, the complexity of the molecule discouraged attempts to prepare antagonists based directly on the parent compound. 

Microbiological oxidation has proven of enormous value in steroid chemistry, often affording selective means of functionalizing remote and chemically inactivated positions. It will bear mentioning that the 11-oxygen for all commercially available corticoids is in fact introduced by such a reaction carried out on plant scale. Preparation of the 1-dehydro analogue of 207 involves biooxidation to introduce the 16-hydroxyl. Incubation of 6a-fluoroprednisolone... 

As is the case with other classes of steroids, inclusion of nitrogen atoms into corticoids has met with only limited pharmacological success. Compounds... 

In patients, who experienced a clinical exacerbation of UC and who had a past history of serious adverse reactions to steroids, the antibiotic (400 mg b.i.d. for 4 weeks) was added to mesalazine (2.4 g daily) treatment [49]. In 7 out of 10 patients (i.e. 70%) a clinical remission was achieved without corticoid use, thus showing that rifaximin displays a steroid-sparing effect. 

The answer is e. (Katzung, p 672. Hardman, pp 1477—1978.) Fludrocortisone is a synthetic steroid compound that exhibits profound mineralo-corticoid activity and some glucocorticoid activity Electrolyte and water metabolisms are affected by the administration of this compound. Fludrocortisone promotes the reabsorption of Na and the urinary excretion of K and hydrogen ions in the collecting duct of the nephron. The drug is indicated for mineralocorticoid replacement therapy in primary" adrenal insufficiency... 

Hormones are intercellular messengers. They are typically (1) steroids (e.g., estrogens, androgens, and mineral corticoids, which control the level of water and salts excreted by the kidney), (2) polypeptides (e.g., insulin and endorphins), and (3) amino acid derivatives (e.g., epinephrine, or adrenaline, and norepinephrine, or noradrenaline). Hormones maintain homeostasis—the balance of biological activities in the body for example, insulin controls the blood glucose level, epinephrine and norepinephrine mediate the response to the external environment, and growth hormone promotes normal healthy growth and development. 

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