The tendency of steroid molecules to adsorb to various materials, particularly plastics, has been known of for decades but has not received widespread attention in the scientific community, and a modern, systematic study is lacking. This adsorption is an important consideration for researchers working with steroid hormones as it could skew the results of various experiments. Here we show that steroids adsorb to various vessels used in experiments, including microcentrifuge tubes, glass vials, and cell culture plates, in a manner that depends on the steroid's molecular structure and on the type of vessel. The lipophilicity of steroids is a strong predictor of the degree of adsorption, with nearly 50 % of the most lipophilic steroid tested, pregnenolone, retained in a high-adsorbing microcentrifuge tube after one hour incubation of an aqueous pregnenolone solution followed by removal of the aqueous solvent. We also show the effects of other factors such as incubation time, centrifugation, and temperature on adsorption, and show that adsorption can be mostly prevented by the presence of serum proteins in steroid solutions and/or by the use of low-adsorbing tubes.

中文翻译：

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常见实验室材料对类固醇激素的结构依赖性保留。

数十年来，类固醇分子吸附各种材料（特别是塑料）的趋势已广为人知，但在科学界并未得到广泛关注，并且缺乏现代，系统的研究。对于吸附类固醇激素的研究人员来说，这种吸附是一个重要的考虑因素，因为它可能会使各种实验的结果产生偏差。在这里，我们显示类固醇以取决于类固醇的分子结构和容器类型的方式吸附到实验中使用的各种容器中，包括微量离心管，玻璃小瓶和细胞培养板。类固醇的亲脂性是吸附程度的强力预测指标，几乎有50％的测试的最亲脂性类固醇，孕烯醇酮，将孕烯醇酮酮水溶液孵育一小时后，将其保留在高吸附力微量离心管中，然后除去水性溶剂。我们还显示了其他因素（如孵育时间，离心分离和温度）对吸附的影响，并表明在类固醇溶液中血清蛋白的存在和/或通过使用低吸附试管可以很大程度上防止吸附。