Dehydroascorbic acid Dehydroascorbic acid Dehydroascorbic acid (DHA) is an oxidized form of ascorbic acid (vitamin C). It is actively imported into the endoplasmic reticulum of cells via glucose transporters. It is trapped therein by reduction back to ascorbate by glutathione and other thiols. The (free) chemical radical semidehydroascorbic acid (SDA) also belongs to the group of oxidized ascorbic acids. Although a sodium-dependent transporter for vitamin C exists, it is present mainly in specialized cells, whereas the glucose transporters, the most notable being GLUT1, transport Vitamin C (in its oxidized form, DHA) in most cells, where recycling back to ascorbate generates the necessary
Chemistry of ascorbic acid from animal adrenal glands. In 1932 Charles Glen King confirmed that it was indeed the antiscorbutic factor. In 1933, sugar chemist Walter Norman Haworth, working with samples of "hexuronic acid" that Szent-Györgyi had isolated from paprika and sent him in the previous year, deduced the correct structure and optical-isomeric nature of the compound, and in 1934 reported its first synthesis. In reference to the compound's antiscorbutic properties, Haworth and Szent-Györgyi proposed to rename it "a-scorbic acid" for the compound, and later specifically -ascorbic acid. Because of their work, in 1937 the Nobel Prizes for chemistry and medicine were awarded to