Sex steroids and parasitism: Taenia crassiceps cisticercus metabolizes exogenous androstenedione to testosterone in vitro

Sex hormones are known to modulate immune responses and may be implicated in sex associated susceptibilities to infections. Taenia crassiceps cysticerci grow to larger numbers in female mice than in males. Gonadectomy alters the course of this infection and hormone replacement with 17β-estradiol increases the parasite numbers. However, in chronic Taenia crassiceps cysticercosis the sex-hormone profile of males becomes more like that of the females' and progressively loose their sexual behavior. To have further insight in these outstanding endocrinological effects induced by the parasite upon the host, we investigated the parasite's capacity to produce sex steroids. In vitro experiments showed that Taenia crassiceps cysticerci transform 3H-Androstenedione to 3 H-Testosterone, but not 3H-Pregnenolone. The production of 3H-Testosterone increased when the parasite numbers doubled. A recrystallisation procedure demonstrated that the metabolite identified by TLC was in fact testosterone. Thus, the cysticercus has the ability to use 3H-Androstenedione to make Testosterone possibly by a 17β-Hydroxysteroid deshidrogenase-like activity in the parasite. In vivo, the parasite could use steroid precursors from the host to produce sex hormones, either accidentally or as needed for its own development, and thus alters the host's normal environment with sexual and immunological repercussions.