Abstract
This article reports microbial biotransformation of dexamethasone, a synthetic glucocorticoid, by Bacillus subtilis. This bacterium can be used as a microbial metabolic model to investigate the metabolism of other synthetic glucocorticoids as it mimics mammalian metabolism to a certain extent. Incubation of dexamethasone with B. subtilis for 7 days yielded three compounds identified as 6-hydroxydexamethasone, 17-oxodexamethasone, and 6-hydroxy-17-oxodexamethasone. Structure elucidation of these compounds was done using H-1-NMR and C-13-NMR spectroscopy techniques.