Estimation of the Toxicity of Different Substituted Aromatic Compounds to the Aquatic Ciliate Tetrahymena pyriformis by QSAR Approach.

Lili Tang,Ting Wang,Feng Luan,Shuang Zhang,M. Cordeiro

doi:10.3390/molecules23051002

Abstract

Nowadays, quantitative structure–activity relationship (QSAR) methods have been widely performed to predict the toxicity of compounds to organisms due to their simplicity, ease of implementation, and low hazards. In this study, to estimate the toxicities of substituted aromatic compounds to Tetrahymena pyriformis, the QSAR models were established by the multiple linear regression (MLR) and radial basis function neural network (RBFNN). Unlike other QSAR studies, according to the difference of functional groups (−NO2, −X), the whole dataset was divided into three groups and further modeled separately. The statistical characteristics for the models are obtained as the following: MLR: n = 36, R2 = 0.829, RMS (root mean square) = 0.192, RBFNN: n = 36, R2 = 0.843, RMS = 0.167 for Group 1; MLR: n = 60, R2 = 0.803, RMS = 0.222, RBFNN: n = 60, R2 = 0.821, RMS = 0.193 for Group 2; MLR: n = 31 R2 = 0.852, RMS = 0.192; RBFNN: n = 31, R2 = 0.885, RMS = 0.163 for Group 3, respectively. The results were within the acceptable range, and the models were found to be statistically robust with high external predictivity. Moreover, the models also gave some insight on those characteristics of the structures that most affect the toxicity.

Highlights

With the rapid development of science and technology, tens of thousands of new chemicals are synthesized and widely used in all walks of life every day
A molecular structural characterization (MSC) method named molecular vertexes correlative index (MVCI) was successfully used to describe the structures of 30 substituted aromatic compounds, and the results suggested good stability and predictability of the quantitative structure–activity relationship (QSAR) models [26]
As mentioned above, based on the structural differences among the molecules which are caused by the influential functional groups (−NO2 and −X), Group 1, 2, and 3 have 46, 75, 39 compounds, respectively

Summary

Introduction

With the rapid development of science and technology, tens of thousands of new chemicals are synthesized and widely used in all walks of life every day. One of the current interests in medicinal chemistry, environmental sciences, and especially for toxicology, is to rank and establish the chemical substances with respect to their potential hazardous effects on humans, wildlife, and aquatic flora and fauna [1]. Among the vast organic matter, it is noteworthy that the substituted aromatic compounds [2,3,4,5,6,7,8] occupy important positions, since they are produced in large quantities and released into the environment as a result of their wide use in agriculture and industry, and are widely distributed in air, natural water, waste water, soil, sediment, and living organics [9,10]. Recent studies have proved that the substituted aromatic compounds are a kind of biotoxic environmental pollutant, and even have the effects of carcinogenesis and gene mutation on organisms [10,11].

Methods

Results

Conclusion