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The effect of calcium ions on steroid-induced difference spectra of cytochrome P-450, and on pregnenolone formation, has been studied in rat adrenal mitochondria. In the presence of phosphate, addition of calcium chloride to suspensions of these mitochondria resulted in an increase in the inverted type-I difference spectrum induced by pregnenolone or methylandrostenediol and a disappearance of the type I spectrum induced by 25-hydroxycholesterol. The difference in the inverted type I spectrum between mitochondria from ether-stressed animals and those given cycloheximide was abolished. Cholesterol side-chain cleavage was increased, providing an NADPH generator was used as source of reducing equivalents. The difference in side-chain cleavage activity between mitochondria from ether-stressed animals and those given cycloheximide, was maintained. In the absence of phosphate, addition of calcium chloride again resulted in a loss of the type I difference spectrum induced by 25-hydroxycholesterol, but this time there was almost no change in the inverted type I spectrum induced by pregnenolone in mitochondria from rats subjected to ether anaesthesia, and the change in cycloheximide-treated rats was only about 50% of the change in the 25-hydroxycholesterol-induced difference spectrum. These observations are interpreted in terms of interconversions of the various forms of cytochrome P-450 associated with side-chain cleavage proposed to exist in intact adrenal mitochondria. Factors such as bovine serum albumin and EDTA, which increase respiratory control in these mitochondria, also stimulate cholesterol side-chain cleavage activity, as do magnesium ions, but without altering the magnitude of the steroid-binding spectra.