Steroids

ACEBEDO, SOFÍA LORENA; RAMÍREZ JAVIER A.

Kirk-Othmer Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology

John Wiley & Sons, Inc

Año: 2021;

Steroids are a unique family of tetracyclic terpenoids that fulfill multiple functions vital to metazoan life. From unicellular fungi to higher plants and mammals, all eukaryotes depend on steroids to orchestrate multiple aspects of their growth, development, and reproduction. The wide array of biological activity of naturally occurring steroids has been exploited in developing therapeutic agents such as antihormones, anesthetics, immunomodulators, contraceptives, and antitumor agents. Nowadays, steroid pharmaceuticals are placed among the most marketed medical products and represent the second largest category next to antibiotics. Therefore, several industrial syntheses were developed for the efficient manufacture of structurally and stereochemically complex pharmaceuticals.