17β-Hydroxysteroid Dehydrogenase Type 5 from Mus musculus: Isolation, Purification and Small-Angle X-Ray Scattering Analysis

One of the most frequent causes of endocrine system pathologies is hormonal imbalance. Special enzymes, 17β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenases, are involved in the regulation of the biological activity of androgens and estrogens in the body. To date, 15 types of these enzymes have been discovered. They play an important role in the biosynthesis or inactivation of various steroid hormones. Studying the structure of these enzymes allows the development of highly specific inhibitors as potential therapeutic agents for the control of hormone-dependent diseases and suggests the ways to modify similar enzymes for biotechnological hormone production. This paper presents an optimized protocol for the isolation and purification of 17β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase type 5 from Mus musculus, as well as analysis of the structure of this enzyme by the methods of dynamic light scattering and small-angle X-ray scattering.