Journal of Microbial & Biochemical Technology

The Phases and Stages of Microbial Transformation of Steroids and Sterols

Jones Lopez* ¹Department of Microbiology, USA

Received: 08-Mar-2021 Published: 24-Mar-2021, DOI: 10.35248/1948-5948.21.13.459

Introduction

Microbial transformation: The modification of an organic compound if it is being performed by microbes. It is said to be called as microbial transformation. There are many types of steroidal transformation which are as follows Oxidation, Hydroxylation, Dehydrogenation, Epoxidations, Oxidation to ketone through hydroxylation, Ring a Aromatization, Degradation of steroid nucleus Oxidation of alcohols to ketone, Side chain cleavage of steroids, Decarboxylation of acids, Reduction Double bond, Aldehyde and ketone to alcohol, Hydrolysis, Isomerisation, Resolution of racemic mixture, Other reactions, Aminations, Enolization of carbonyl compounds, Esterification.

Oxidation: Alcohols are oxidised to ketone. Splitting of side chain of steroids takes place. Hydrolysis: Replacement of hydroxyl group directly for the hydrogen takes place at the position. Which might be alpha or beta in the steroid where either a retention or configuration takes place. Flavobacterium dehydrogenans contain a specific enzyme acetolase which hydrolyses the steroidal acetates. A particular enzyme called acetolase is present in flavobacterium dehydrogenans due to which steroidal acetates gets hydrolysed.

Dehydrogenation: Consequent introduction of double bond with the dehydrogenation has been outlined for all four rings of the steroid nucleus. Epoxidations: In biological epoxidation, steroidal epoxidation is a sparse process.

Ring A aromatization: If appropriate steroid substances are aromatized microbially leads to ring A aromatic compounds. Specifically, in oral contraceptives in which the important ingredient is oestrogen.

Degradation of steroid nucleus: In sidechains, steroids are degraded. Is the aliphatic side chain is removed selectively without additional malfunction of steroidal nucleus. Species like nocardia can cause breakdown of sidechain inorder to produce C17ketosteroids

Reduction: Alcohols & ketones are depleted to form alcohols. Dehydrogenation: In the corticosteroids A-ring 1,2 double bond is introduced predliction for the glucocorticoid receptor takes place. With the 3-keto-4 group depletion of its metabolic degradation rate causes increased therapeutic potency. By using the whole cells, microbial transformation takes place.

Esterification: It is a process in which the androstenedione in the presence of sacromyces fragilis, testosterone acetate is formed. Steroidal ring degradation: Cholestrol is coverted to androsterone followed by formation of androstadienedione, on later reactions 9 alpha-hydroxy-androstandiendione is formed which is later converted to androstandiendione. The whole process of deteoriation of cholesterol takes place by mycobacteria

Conclusion

This article concludes that microbial transformation of steroids is of different types which involves oxidation, hydroxylation, dehydrogenation, reduction, ring A aromatisation, Steroidal ring degradation , esterification, degradation of steroidal nucleus & Epoxidation in which some of them takes place in presence of enzymes whereas many of them requires bacterial species inorder to get the final product.