[Cleavage of the side chain of sitosterol by R, S and M mycobacteria variants].

The purpose of this work was to study the capability of the R, S and M variants of 12 strains belonging to 5 mycobacterial species to decompose sitosterol and to transform it, in the presence of 8-hydroxyquinoline, yielding pregnenecarboxylic acid, androst-1,4-diene-3,17-dione, androst-4-ene-3,17-dione and sitostenone. All of the cultures decompose sitosterol, the cells of the M variant being most active and the cells of the R variant having the lowest activity. Differences in the products of transformation were observed not only among species, but also, to a strong degree, among variants of one and the same mycobacterial species.