Abstract: | Dihydrodiol dehydrogenase activity was detected in the cytosol of several monkey tissues, among which kidney exhibited the highest activity and contained a high-molecular weight (Mr approximately 65,000) enzyme species. The enzyme species was purified to apparent homogeneity and showed a subunit molecular weight of 39,000. The enzyme oxidized benzene dihydrodiol (Km = 0.9 mM) at a pH optimum of 9.8, and highly reduced vicinal diketones such as camphorquinone (Km = 0.1 mM) and diacetyl (Km = 0.8 mM) around pH 7.5, but alicyclic alcohols, hydroxysteroids and ketosteroids were inactive substrates for this enzyme. Quercitrin, SH-reagents, stilbestrol were inhibitory to the enzyme activity, but other synthetic estrogens, anti-inflammatory agents and 3-ketosteroids were not. |