Detection of anabolic androgenic steroid abuse in doping control using mammalian reporter gene bioassays

Abstract

Anabolic androgenic steroids (AAS) are a class of steroid hormones related to the male hormone testosterone. They are frequently detected as drugs in sport doping control. Being similar to or derived from natural male hormones, AAS share the activation of the androgen receptor (AR) as common mechanism of action. The mammalian androgen responsive reporter gene assay (AR CALUX ® bioassay), measuring compounds interacting with the AR can be used for the analysis of AAS without the necessity of knowing their chemical structure beforehand, whereas current chemical–analytical approaches may have difficulty in detecting compounds with unknown structures, such as designer steroids. This study demonstrated that AAS prohibited in sports and potential designer AAS can be detected with this AR reporter gene assay, but that also additional steroid activities of AAS could be found using additional mammalian bioassays for other types of steroid hormones. Mixtures of AAS were found to behave additively in the AR reporter gene assay showing that it is possible to use this method for complex mixtures as are found in doping control samples, including mixtures that are a result of multi drug use. To test if mammalian reporter gene assays could be used for the detection of AAS in urine samples, background steroidal activities were measured. AAS-spiked urine samples, mimicking doping positive samples, showed significantly higher androgenic activities than unspiked samples. GC–MS analysis of endogenous androgens and AR reporter gene assay analysis of urine samples showed how a combined chemical–analytical and bioassay approach can be used to identify samples containing AAS. The results indicate that the AR reporter gene assay, in addition to chemical–analytical methods, can be a valuable tool for the analysis of AAS for doping control purposes.