Translations:Vitamin D/88/en
Photochemistry
The transformation that converts 7-dehydrocholesterol to vitamin D3 occurs in two steps. First, 7-dehydrocholesterol is photolyzed by ultraviolet light in a 6-electron conrotatory ring-opening electrocyclic reaction; the product is previtamin D3. Second, previtamin D3 spontaneously isomerizes to vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol) in an antarafacial sigmatropic [1,7] hydride shift. At room temperature, the transformation of previtamin D3 to vitamin D3 in an organic solvent takes about 12 days to complete. The conversion of previtamin D3 to vitamin D3 in the skin is about 10 times faster than in an organic solvent.