Just read this on the data sheet, but I am not a biologist, so I am aking to understand more.
Neither am I.
One is a matter of concentration. At sufficiently high concentration every surfactant will be able to harm cell membranes. Nonionic surfactants similar to Tweens are much more mild than anionic ones like sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS). Beside anionic/nonionic important factor is bulkiness of surfactant molecule. Short straight chain surfactants with polar group at end of this chain interact more strongly with membranes and can more easily penetrate them. That is also the reason why SDS is much more irritating than alkyl sulfonates (only a few percent of molecules with sulfonate group at end of chain only). If given you should have therefore a look on ingredients when you buy tooth paste.
Tweens is a brand name for different polysorbates. The short-chain ones like tween 20, are very mild detergents which are used in a number of different applications.
Very likely they do not damage the lipid moiety of the cell membrane and therefore do not cause cell lysis, or rather, not at the same extent as other surfactants like SDS, DDAB and the like.
For more details and uses please check Wikipedia at the entry Tween 20 - 80.
Scientific literature on this subject is extremely vast. Please check for reviews in Pubmed just "Tween toxicity"
Poly-sorbates have non-ionic units as polar head groups, and are, therefore, not aggressive towards almost all cell lines. Compared to ionic species (such as SDS and CTAB, for instance) their denaturing activity is very poor, if any. Neither they contain aromatic groups as the commonly used Triton-like surfactants (alkylphenol-polyoxyethylene glycol species); aromatic staking groups, in fact, may be toxic. Alkyl poly-sorbates do not suffer from such drawbacks. Together with alkyl glucosides (or alkyl poly-glucosides) and alkyl betaines (bearing zwitterionic polar head groups, currently obtained by amino-acids) they are among the more reliable mild, and non aggressive, surface active agents.
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