Doping control of estra-4,9-diene-3,17-dione in horses

Estra-4,9-diene-3,17-dione (dienedione) is an anabolic-androgenic steroid (AAS) available on the market as a dietary supplement for bodybuilding. It is prohibited in both human and equine sports due to its potential performance-enhancing effect. With the rare presence of the 4,9-diene configuration in endogenous steroids, dienedione has been considered as a synthetic AAS. Nevertheless, the reoccurring detection of dienedione in entire male horse urine samples led to the investigation of its possible endogenous nature in horses, and its endogenous nature in entire male horses has been recently confirmed and reported by the authors' laboratory. While dienedione is not detected in castrated horses (geldings), it is essential to study its elimination and identify its metabolites for its effective control. To study the elimination and biotransformation of dienedione, administration experiments were performed by giving three castrated horses (geldings) each single oral dose of 1500 mg of dienedione powder for seven consecutive days. The postulated in vivo metabolites included 17-hydroxyestra-4,9-dien-3-one (M1a and M1b), hydroxylated dienedione (M2a, M2b, M3a, M3b, M4, M5) and hydroxylated M1 (M6a, M6b, M7a, M7b, M8a and M8b), formed from hydroxylation and reduction of dienedione. To control the misuse of dienedione in geldings, M3a and M3b are the potential targets that gave the longest detection time, which could be detected for up to 2-5 days in urine and 0.4-4 days in plasma.