Predicting carcinogenicity of organic compounds based on CPDB

Abstract

Cancer is a major killer of human health and predictions for the carcinogenicity of chemicals are of great importance. In this article, predictive models for the carcinogenicity of organic compounds using QSAR methods for rats and mice were developed based on the data from CPDB. The models was developed based on the data of specific target site liver and classified according to sex of rats and mice. Meanwhile, models were also classified according to whether there is a ring in the molecular structure in order to reduce the diversity of molecular structure. Therefore, eight local models were developed in the final. Taking into account the complexity of carcinogenesis and in order to obtain as much information, DRAGON descriptors were selected as the variables used to develop models. Fitting ability, robustness and predictive power of the models were assessed according to the OECD principles. The external predictive coefficients for validation sets of each model were in the range of 0.711–0.906, and for the whole data in each model were all greater than 0.8, which represents that all models have good predictivity. In order to study the mechanism of carcinogenesis, standardized regression coefficients were calculated for all predictor variables. In addition, the effect of animal sex on carcinogenesis was compared and a trend that female showed stronger tolerance for cancerogen than male in both species was appeared.