“…Those enzymes which have been examined are generally from liver or bacterial sources, rather than classical endocrine or endocrine responsive tissues. Examples of HSDs known to use non-steroidal compounds as substrates include Pseudomonas testosteroni 3a-HSD (Mukharji, 1982;Ringold et al, 1967a,b), Pseudomonas testosteroni 3,-HSD (Ringold, 1967b), Streptomyces hydrogenans 3a,20,-HSD (White & Jeffery, 1977), 3a-HSD of rat liver cytosol (Penning et al, 1984) and 17,8-HSD of rabbit, guinea-pig and mouse liver (Takenoshita & Toki, 1977;Hara et al, 1985Hara et al, , 1986Swada et al, 1988). In other studies, compounds containing a partial steroid nucleus have been shown to be substrates of placental 17,/-HSD, including methoxy-3-A-des-oestradiol (Boussioux et al, 1973).…”