{"id":7020,"date":"2020-03-05T00:02:55","date_gmt":"2020-03-04T16:02:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsletter.sinica.edu.tw/en\/?p=7020"},"modified":"2021-08-26T11:48:45","modified_gmt":"2021-08-26T03:48:45","slug":"retroconversion-of-estrogens-into-androgens-by-bacteria-via-a-cobalamin-mediated-methylation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsletter.sinica.edu.tw/en\/7020\/","title":{"rendered":"Retroconversion of Estrogens into Androgens by Bacteria via A Cobalamin-Mediated Methylation"},"content":{"rendered":"
Sex steroids, namely androgens and estrogens, modulate physiology, development, and reproduction of animals. Biosynthesis of C18<\/sub> estrogens proceeds through the removal of the C-19 angular methyl group from C19<\/sub> androgens, resulting in the formation of an aromatic A-ring. This aromatization proceeds through the oxidative bond cleavage between steroidal C-10 and C-19, which is catalyzed by an aromatase at the cost of NADPH and O2<\/sub>. The reverse reaction (from estrogens to androgens) is thermodynamically challenging and has not been reported in any organisms.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In the past decade, Dr. Yin-Ru Chiang and his research team at the Biodiversity Research Center focused on anaerobic steroid metabolism in bacteria. Their previous study published in Frontiers in Microbiology<\/em> indicated that anaerobic bacteria are able to transform androgens into estrogens through oxygenase-independent pathway. Recently, they found that anaerobic bacteria are able to transform estrogens into androgens through a cobalamin-dependent methylation. Furthermore, they identified the corresponding genes and proposed biochemical mechanisms involved in the retroconversion of estrogens into androgens. The identification of the cobalamin-dependent estrogen methylation reaction thus represents an unprecedented metabolic link between cobalamin and steroid metabolism. This study has been recently published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America<\/em> (abbreviation: PNAS<\/em>) on 21 January, 2020. Article website: https:\/\/www.pnas.org\/content\/117\/3\/1395<\/a>.<\/p>\n