Steroid biosynthesis by surviving testicular tumor tissue.

The appearance of gynecomastia and other feminizing symptoms in the male concomitant with the appearance of certain types of testicular tumors has long been noted (1). Therefore, the possibility has been suggested that these tumors produce excessive amounts of female sex hormones. The recent work of Goldzieher and Roberts (2) demonstrated that human testes contain small amounts (5.7 y per kilo of tissue) of estradiol-17/3. More recently, Marti and Heusser (3) obtained a large testicular tumor from which they were able to isolate 13 mg. of pure estradiol as the dibenzoate. The tissue of this tumor was identified by pathologic examination as having been displaced adrenal tissue. In 1945, Laipply and Shipley (4) studied a case of extragenital choriocarcinema and reported isolation of pregnanediol and estrogens from the urine of this patient in an amount which greatly exceeded that of normal urine. Guinet et al. (5) also reported an elevation of pregnanediol in the urine of a patient with a testicular tumor. From the Department of Pathology at Massachusetts Memorial Hospitals a piece of tumor tissue weighing 1.4 gm. was obtained which was described as an embryonal testicular carcinoma with lymphatic invasion. hfter incubation of the tumor tissue with l-C14-acetate, the mixt.ure yielded radioactive testosterone, androstenedione, progesterone, estrone, and estradiol. Urine specimens, taken postoperatively from this patient, yielded excessive amounts of pregnanediol. In order to rule out the possibi1it.y of the presence of small but highly radioactive impurities, the radioactive steroid fractions were subjected to repeated chromatography on paper, treatment wit.h chromic acid followed by crystallization of the oxidation product, format.ion, chromatographic purification, and crystallization of a derivative, and finally reformation and crystallization of the free steroids.