Coupling of steroid O-(carboxymethyl)oxime derivatives with amino alcohols

New approach to the preparation of steroids with connecting bridge, based on an O-carboxymethyloxime (CMO) structure, and with terminal hydroxy group, is presented. 17-CMO derivatives of 3 beta-acetoxy- and 3 beta-methoxymethoxyandrost-5-en-17-one were condensed with alpha,omega-amino alcohols to give derivatives with a chain of seven to nine atoms. After THP-protection, these compounds were converted to 3-keto-4-ene derivatives. An alternative synthesis consisted in transformation of 17-CMO derivatives with bonded amino acids by reduction of the terminal carboxyl. The resulting compounds were designed as building blocks for the preparation of bis-haptens for sandwich immunoassays.