Detailed Introduction to Steroids Analysis

Posted by Dora West on December 28th, 2021

Steroid hormone is a class of compounds that contain cyclopentane polyhydrophenanthrene structure formed by cholesterol and catalyzed by cytochrome P450 enzymes. Steroid hormones mainly include adrenocorticotropic hormones secreted by the adrenal cortex and sex hormones secreted by the gonads, which are mainly divided into four categories: progesterone, corticosteroid, estrogen and androgen. Steroid hormones play an important role in regulating human metabolism, maintaining internal environment stability, growth, development and reproductive behavior.

Steroid hormones are primarily found in trace levels in the human body, so there is a need to discover a reliable, accurate and convenient analytical method for steroid hormones. Among the methods currently available for steroid hormone detection, liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) technology has shown promising sensitivity, specificity and throughput. Creative Proteomics possessed large-scale chromatography/mass spectrometry platform for steroid hormone detection.

Endogenous steroid hormones are produced in the human body mainly by cholesterol metabolism catalyzed by a series of enzymes. Moreover, endogenous steroid hormones are interconverted in the body, produced or consumed constantly to maintain a dynamic equilibrium. There is a clinical need to accurately measure each steroid hormone\'s concentration and understand the metabolic pathways to support research studies on disease mechanisms, diagnosis and treatment.

Steroid hormone assays entered clinical use as early as the 1950s, with the parallel development of biochemical immunoassays and mass spectrometry. Early methods included enzyme bioassays and chemical assays, which applied colorimetric and fluorometric detection for analysis, respectively. However, these methods were limited to the analysis of urine samples. Until the development of radioimmunoassay and gas-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), serum and plasma samples were gradually made available for analysis. In the early days, immunoassays were widely used due to their relative simplicity in operation and much lower cost.

With the increasing clinical demand, the limitations of the immunological method have been gradually exposed. This method suffers from varying degrees of specific and non-specific interference, and has a narrow dynamic linear range, poor detection at low concentrations, and prone to false positives. In contrast, the rapid development of GC-MS and LC-MS analysis in recent years has demonstrated advantages such as multi-component analysis, targeting, high throughput, rapid, accurate and quantitative. Therefore, MS-based analytical methods gradually replaced immunological methods and became the mainstream steroid hormone detection tools.

In many endocrine diseases, the levels of steroid hormones are generally deficient, usually at the ng or even pg level, and mass spectrometry methods can meet the needs of low-level steroid hormone detection. Furthermore, most steroid compounds are soluble in organic solvents, but they are not volatile due to their high polarity and lipophilicity. Steroids with relatively high polarity are classified as corticosteroids, estrogens, progestins, bile acids, and therefore are analyzed mainly by LC-MS.

Creative Proteomics ensures high-quality steroid hormone assays by optimizing sample purification and chromatographic separation methods, as well as structurally similar steroid hormone analysis to accelerate your project research.