Microbial transformation of 17α-ethinyl steroids

Microbial transformation or biotransformation is the modification in certain compounds using living organism such as bacterial or fungi. The main objective of present study is to investigate transformed metabolites, produced during fermentation of 17α-ethinyl steroids. Tibolone is a 17α-ethinyl steroids, was chosen as the starting compound. Two fungi, Tricothecium roseum and Seaweed fungus have been used for fermentation studies. The transformed products were analyzed by using Thin Layer Chromatography (TLC) and High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC). Isolation of metabolite were carried through Column Chromatography. Isolated metabolite was characterize through Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) Spectroscopy and LC-MS. Based on spectral data, the transformed metabolite was identified as 7α-methyl-17α-ethynl-17β-hydroxy-19-norandrost-4-en-3-one.