Tamoxifen Increases Membrane Fluidity at High Concentrations

Abstract

There are contradictory results in the literature relating to the effect oftamoxifen on membrane fluidity. The present work investigates the effect oftamoxifen on membrane dynamics to find out whether the concentration oftamoxifen can be one of the factors in this discrepancy. Turbidity(absorbance at 440 nm) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopicstudies reveal that tamoxifen causes opposite effects on membranefluidity at low (1 mol.%) and high (30 mol.%) tamoxifen concentrations. Lowtamoxifen concentrations increase the absorbance in the gel and liquidcrystalline phase, whereas high tamoxifen concentrations decrease theabsorbance in gel and liquid crystalline phase, whereas tamoxifenconcentrations decrease the absorbance. Observations on both phasesshow that the bandwidth of the CH2 stretching bands decreases with1 mol.% tamoxifen and increases with 30 mol.% tamoxifen present, indicatinga decrease in membrane fluidity at low tamoxifen concentrations and anincrease in fluidity at high tamoxifen concentrations. It is seen that theapparent discrepancy in the literature on the effect of tamoxifen onmembrane fluidity mainly arises from the tamoxifen concentration used andthe confusion on the concept of lipid fluidity and lipid order.