Estrogen biosynthesis from testosterone-4-14C by post-ovulatory human ovaries. Comparison between the corpus-luteum ovary and its partner

The whole of each ovary from 2 women in the luteal phase of normal cycles was incubated with testosterone-4-carbon-14 in order to test the postulate that an interaction between ovarian compartments might be involved in the post-ovulatory synthesis of estrogens. Estradiol, estriol and estrone were all identified, estriol in only one ovary, from the corpus-luteum ovary. In both women, the corpus-luteum ovary converted more than 60 times as much substrate to estrogens than its non-corpus-luteum partner, and produced markedly lower yields of testosterone, 4-androstene-3, 17-dione(androstene-dione) and of their 16-alpha-hydroxy derivatives. All 4 of these compounds were identified. The 19-hydroxy derivative of testosterone and androstene-dione were also identified, but with a less marked difference between the two ovaries. The markedly lower yields of the 16-alpha-hydroxy derivatives from the corpus-luteum ovaries indicates that they were being further metabolized. The yield of estriol was too low, however, to implicate this steroid as a final product of their conversion.