New Syntheses of Corticoids

Corticosteroids are commercially produced from deoxycholic acid via a chemical process comprising many steps or from diosgenin and stigmasterol via a process involving a microbiological oxidation step at C-11. Recent advances in the microbiological degradation of cholesterol and abundant soya sterols allowed the production of androst-4-ene-3, 17-dione, 9 α-hydroxyandrost-4-ene-3, 17-dione, androsta-1, 4-diene-3, 17-dione, 21-hydroxy-20-methylpregna-1, 4-dien-3-one and 3-oxopregna-1, 4-diene-20-carboxylic acid which may be potentially useful starting materials for the syntheses of corticoids. In this article, the new syntheses of corticoids from these new steroids have been reviewed.