What are steroid hormones?
Steroid hormones are a group of compounds with a cyclopentane polyhydrophenanthrene structure formed by cholesterol catalyzed by cytochrome P450 enzymes. Steroid hormones are divided into four main groups: progesterone, corticosteroid, estrogen, and androgen. Steroid hormones play an important role in regulating human metabolism, maintaining the stability of the internal environment, growth, development and reproductive behavior.
Detection of steroid hormones
Steroid hormones are low in content, similar in structure and diverse in living organisms, so accurate quantification of steroid hormones requires a highly sensitive instrument and a method capable of generating accurate results. At present, the main samples for detecting steroid hormones are blood samples, hair, urine, saliva, endometrium, etc.
The establishment of the analytical method includes sample processing and the selection of the analytical method. A good sample pretreatment method can serve to enrich the target components, eliminate or reduce matrix interference, and improve sensitivity, while on the contrary, it can easily introduce errors and prolong the analysis time. In addition, a reasonable analytical method can provide more accurate results for experimental studies and ensure the reliability of the results.
1. Sample processing method
The methods for the analysis of steroid hormones in the blood are divided into direct processing and processing with the help of derivatization. The main methods of direct processing are protein precipitation (PP), liquid-liquid extraction (LLE) and solid-phase extraction (SPE). The derivatization method is mainly used for compounds that are particularly difficult to ionize such as estradiol, estrone and pregnenolone, especially for special clinical samples with high detection requirements.
2. Detection method
Some steroid hormones are present at low levels in the blood and therefore require the use of sensitive assays. The main steroid hormone assays commonly used by Creative Proteomics include the following.
- High-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC)
- Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS)
- High-performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS/MS)
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