Abstract
The theory of hard and soft acids and bases (HSAB theory) can be used to correlate information on metal ion toxicity and the relative effectiveness of therapeutic chelating agents with parameters used to characterize “hardness” and “softness”. HSAB considerations appear to govern at least some of the non-specific aspects of metal ion toxicity. They are also useful in explaining some of the known patterns of metal ion detoxification and how situations arise where the rate behavior, rather than equilibrium factors, may be of importance in determining the success of a given chelating agent in enhancing the excretion of a given toxic metal. In many instances an effective evaluation of the applicability of HSAB theory to such systems is prevented by the limited availability of the necessary biological data. The correlations found can be used to estimate the toxicity of chemical species for which HSAB parameters but not toxicity data are available, as well as to preselect the most promising chelating agents for therapeutic testing.
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