Androgenic Responses Not Mediated by 5α-dihydrotestosterone

Abstract

As 5α-dihydrotestosterone has assumed such a critical place in the mechanism of action of androgens, and the review of steroid metabolism within androgen target cells has been primarily devoted to the enzyme, 5α-reductase, it is propitious to appraise critically the mandatory involvement of this active metabolite in androgenic responses. The involvement of 5α-dihydrotestosterone in androgenic responses is by no means invariant; from the summary presented in Table 3, it is evident that many biological responses may be evoked only by testosterone itself or metabolites other than 5α-dihydrotestosterone.