Progesterone Proof

• Print this article
• Email the editor
• Share...

• Share on Facebook

Topics Covered

natural products, steroids, hormone, plants

Shutterstock

Walnut tree leaves, in which researchers have found progesterone.

Latest News



October 28, 2011

Speedy Homemade-Explosive Detector

Forensic Chemistry: A new method could increase the number of explosives detected by airport screeners.

Solar Panel Makers Cry Foul

Trade: U.S. companies complain of market dumping by China.

Novartis To Cut 2,000 Jobs

Layoffs follow similar moves by Amgen, AstraZeneca.

Nations Break Impasse On Waste

Environment: Ban to halt export of hazardous waste to developing world.

New Leader For Lawrence Livermore

Penrose (Parney) Albright will direct DOE national lab.

Hair Reveals Source Of People's Exposure To Mercury

Toxic Exposure: Mercury isotopes in human hair illuminate dietary and industrial sources.

Why The Long Fat?

Cancer Biochemistry: Mass spectrometry follows the metabolism of very long fatty acids in cancer cells.

For the first time, researchers have obtained rigorous evidence that progesterone, a mammalian steroid hormone, is found in a plant (J. Nat. Prod., DOI: 10.1021/np9007415).

Many research groups have hinted at the presence of progesterone in plants—the compound can be made from precursors found in plants such as the Mexican yam. While searching for cytotoxic entities in walnut tree leaves, Guido F. Pauli of the University of Illinois, Chicago, and colleagues isolated small quantities of progesterone and confirmed the hormone's presence by a combination of mass spectrometry and nuclear magnetic resonance techniques. In another plant, the team discovered novel sulfates of progesterone-like compounds.

"This raises fundamental questions about steroid biosynthesis—can all plants make progesterone?" Pauli asks. In mammals, progesterone has several roles, such as preparing the uterine lining for a potential pregnancy, but progesterone's biochemical role in plants is not clear, which warrants further research, he says.

"Although we may have thought we knew that plants contained progesterone, Pauli and colleagues have definitively proven this to be the case," says Charles L. Cantrell, a research chemist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

"I consider this to be a major contribution to our knowledge of plant secondary metabolite biosynthesis," says David S. Seigler, who studies the bioactivities of plant-derived compounds at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

Chemical & Engineering News

ISSN 0009-2347

Copyright © 2011 American Chemical Society