Droloxifene (3-hydroxytamoxifen) has membrane antioxidant ability: potential relevance to its mechanism of therapeutic action in breast cancer

Droloxifene (3-hydroxytamoxifen), is a triphenylethylene derivative recently developed for the treatment of breast cancer. Droloxifene was found to exhibit a membrane antioxidant ability in that it inhibited Fe(III)-ascorbate dependent lipid peroxidation in rat liver microsomes and ox-brain phospholipid liposomes. It also inhibited microsomal lipid peroxidation induced by Fe(III)-ADP/NADPH. Droloxifene was a better inhibitor of lipid peroxidation than tamoxifen, but was less effective than 17β-oestradiol in the two microsomal systems and in the preformed liposomal system. When introduced into oxbrain phospholipid liposomes, droloxifene inhibited Fe(III)-ascorbate induced lipid peroxidation to approximately the same extent as similarly introduced cholesterol and tamoxifen, although to a lesser extent than 17β-oestradiol. This inhibition of lipid peroxidation by droloxifene may result from a membrane stabilization that could be associated in cancer cells with decreased plasma membrane fluidity. This mechanism may be related to the clinically important antiproliferative action of droloxifene on cancer cells.