Estradiol

November 04, 2013
Image of Estradiol 3D Image of Estradiol

The Merck Index calls estradiol 鈥渢he most potent naturally occurring estrogen in mammals鈥�. Females produce it in the ovaries and, during pregnancy, in the placenta. In males, estradiol is a metabolic product of testosterone.

D. W. MacCorquodale and co-workers isolated estradiol from sows鈥� ovaries in 1936. Soon several researchers prepared it from other steroids. About 40 years later, two research teams reported its total synthesis.

Much research has been devoted to estradiol as a sex hormone, but it recently turned up in a听. K. L. Klump and co-workers at Michigan State University tracked estradiol levels in twin girls after midpuberty and found that the hormone correlated with eating disorders in identical, but not fraternal, twins. Klump believes that estradiol, a gene transcription factor in the brain, may switch on genes related to the disorders.

MOTW update:听
August 03, 2020

Estradiol听is the major, and most potent, estrogen sex hormone in female vertebrates, especially mammals. In this year of the COVID-19 pandemic, the abundance of estradiol in women may be one reason that by鈥攁nd death from鈥攖he virus. But so far the evidence is far from clear.

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