Steroid hormone conjugates significance

For many years the significance of steroid conjugation has probably wrongly been associated to direct hormonal activity, and it seemed difficult to believe that an abundant circulatory sulfate such as dehydroepian-drosterone, besides being a precursor, had no activity of its own. The same question has been raised since the discovery that estrone sulfate is the main circulating estrogen in man (Ruder et al., 1971 Brown and Smyth, 1971). 

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