In the gland, DHT may be either reversibly 3α- or irreversibly 3β-hydroxylated by the different 3α- and 3β-hydroxysteroid
dehydrogenases respectively (Steckelbroeck et al. 2004); these transformations generate two metabolites respectively 3α-diol and 3β-Adiol, which are both unable to bind the AR.
Instead, 3β-Adiol displays a high affinity for ERβ (Kuiper et al. 1998, Nilsson et al. 2001), and it has been proposed that this metabolite may play a key role in prostate development