Conformational enantiomerization and estrogen receptor α binding of anti-cancer drug tamoxifen and its derivatives.

The anticancer drug tamoxifen (TAM) displays two chiral vinyl propeller structures, which interconvert so rapidly that the process is undetectable on the NMR time scale. In the present work, the enantiomerization processes were investigated with molecular modeling techniques. The threshold mechanisms probed at the different rings were shown to be identical, i.e., involving a synchronous three-ring flip, with a correlated rotation of the rings. In order to reveal the pharmacological profiles of the two chiral forms, we performed structural studies on the ligand binding domain of estrogen receptor α (ERα LBD) and associated ligands. The enantiomers, with opposite torsional twist, were found to be discriminated by ERα. For TAM and its main metabolites, the effects of the stereoselectivity of ERα are overcome by the low energy cost for helical inversion between the two torsional enantiomers, estimated to be ∼3 kcal/mol.