Further studies on the mechanism of action of gossypol on mitochondrial membrane

• 1.1. In order to explore the mechanism of inhibition of hydroxylases involved in steroidogenesis, by gossypol, we studied the effect of this drug on adrenal cortex mitochondria, and compared it with those on kidney and heart.
• 2.2. The uncoupler effect of gossypol (collapse of Δψ and Ca²⁺ efflux) was found to be lower in adrenal cortex mitochondria than in kidney and heart mitochondria.
• 3.3. Gossypol produced more extensive changes on the membrane lipidic matrix (increase in the order parameter for 5-doxylstearic acid) in adrenal cortex mitochondria than in the other mitochondria studied.
• 4.4. The results described above indicate that the mechanism of inhibition of gossypol of steroidogenic adrenal enzymes could be attributed to an alteration of the lipidic matrix which, in turn, modifies protein function.