Quantitative structure‐activity relationship investigation of the role of hydrophobicity in regulating mutagenicity in the Ames test: 2. Mutagenicity of aromatic and heteroaromatic nitro compounds in Salmonella typhimurium TA100

Abstract

A quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR) has been derived for the mutagenic activity of 117 aromatic and heteroaromatic nitro compounds acting on Salmonella typhimurium TA100. Relative mutagenic activity is bilin-early dependent on hydrophobicity, with an optimal log P of 5.44, and is linearly dependent on the energy of the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital of the nitro compound. The dependence of mutagenic activity on hydrophobicity and electronic effects is very similar for TA98 and TA100. Mutagenic activity in TA100 does not depend on the size of the aromatic ring system, as its does in TA9. The effect of the choice of assay organism, TA98 versus TA100, on nitroarene QSAR is seen to be similar to the effect previously found for aminoarenes. Lateral verification of QSARs is presented as a tool for establishing the significance of a new QSAR.