Important Partitioning Coefficients

Perhaps the most common application of Ko is for predicting the bioconcentration of low-polarity hydrophobic contaminants from water into aquatic biota. A bioconcentration factor (BCF) can be represented as 

The constant 0.048 representing the ft 5% lipid content of fish, or as Mackay describes, about 5% octanol by volume. However, relationships between BCF and Aiow appear to break down for chemicals with log Kovi l, as these superhydrophobic substances may have difficulty crossing cellular membranes i.e. they have a low bioavailability) or are rapidly egested from the organism. There is, in fact, little consensus on the reasons for the breakdown in the linear relationship between BCF and chemicals with log Ko l, but both Borga et a/. and Boethling et al. point out that the experimental artefacts associated 

Xow is also used to describe partitioning to general organic phases within the environment and K c (introduced above) can be directly estimated from Ko according to the empirically derived relationship 

Multiplying (which also has units of L kg ) by soil density (- 2.4 kg 

2 Henry s Law Constant and Air- Water Partitioning (Ka ) Air-water partitioning is described by the Henry s Law constant (//), which is defined as the ratio of the partial pressure (j ) of a chemical in the air to its mole fraction (or molar concentration) dissolved in water (Cw) at equilibrium, according to 

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The accurate prediction of the aqueous solubility of drugs and drug-like compounds is much further away from a satisfactory solution because the existing QSAR- or group-contribution-based solubility prediction models exhibit quite limited predictive power for new drug classes. Why is it that the extremely important problem of the prediction of aqueous solubility much less solved than the prediction of less important partition coefficients The answer is that the development of prediction models for logarithmic partition coefficients is much simpler, because the molecule X under consideration only acts as a solute at infinite dilution in the two phases. Hence the task is only to calculate the free energy of... 

There are several important partitioning coefficients, besides the fundamental properties of vapour pressure and aqueous solubility, which are essential for understanding chemical transfer in the environment and these are illustrated in Figure 2 and include the air/water -octanol/... 

Rosier JA, Van Peteghem CH. 1987. Determination of toxicologically important partition coefficients of carbon disulfide by means of the vial equilibration method. Br J Ind Med 44 212-213. 

Two approaches to quantify/fQ, i.e., to establish a quantitative relationship between the structural features of a compoimd and its properties, are described in this section quantitative structure-property relationships (QSPR) and linear free energy relationships (LFER) cf. Section 3.4.2.2). The LFER approach is important for historical reasons because it contributed the first attempt to predict the property of a compound from an analysis of its structure. LFERs can be established only for congeneric series of compounds, i.e., sets of compounds that share the same skeleton and only have variations in the substituents attached to this skeleton. As examples of a QSPR approach, currently available methods for the prediction of the octanol/water partition coefficient, log P, and of aqueous solubility, log S, of organic compoimds are described in Section 10.1.4 and Section 10.15, respectively. 

The partition coefficient and aqueous solubility are properties important for the study of the adsorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion, and toxicity (ADME-Tox) of drugs. The prediction of the ADME-Tox properties of drug candidates has recently attracted much interest because these properties account for the failure of about 60 % of all drug candidates in the clinical phases. The prediction of these properties in an early phase of the drug development process could therefore lead to significant savings in research and development costs. 

The derivation of a QSAR equation involves a number of distinct stages. First, it is obviousl necessary to synthesise the compormds and determine their biological activities. Whe planning which compormds to synthesise, it is important to cover the range of propertie that may affect the activity. This means applying the data-checking and -manipulation prc cedures discussed earlier. For example, it would be unwise to make a series of coinpound with almost identical partition coefficients if this is believed to be an important property. 

This distinction between Kd and D is important. The partition coefficient is an equilibrium constant and has a fixed value for the solute s partitioning between the two phases. The value of the distribution ratio, however, changes with solution conditions if the relative amounts of forms A and B change. If we know the equilibrium reactions taking place within each phase and between the phases, we can derive an algebraic relationship between Kd and D. 

Other important determinants of the effects of compounds, especially solvents, are their partition coefficients, e.g., blood-tissue partition coefficients, which determine the distribution of the compound in the body. The air-blood partition coefficient is also important for the absorption of a compound because it determines how quickly the compound can be absorbed from the airspace of the lungs into the circulation. An example of a compound that has a high air-blood partition coefficient is trichloroethane (low blood solubility) whereas most organic solvents (e.g., benzene analogues) have low air-blood partition coefficients (high blood solubility). 

The important yet unexpected result is that in NR-s-SBR (solution) blends, carbon black preferably locates in the interphase, especially when the rubber-filler interaction is similar for both polymers. In this case, the carbon black volume fraction is 0.6 for the interphase, 0.24 for s-SBR phase, and only 0.09 in the NR phase. The higher amount in SBR phase could be due to the presence of aromatic structure both in the black and the rubber. Further, carbon black is less compatible with NR-cE-1,4 BR blend than NR-s-SBR blend because of the crystallization tendency of the former blend. There is a preferential partition of carbon black in favor of cis-1,4 BR, a significant lower partition coefficient compared to NR-s-SBR. Further, it was observed that the partition coefficient decreases with increased filler loading. In the EPDM-BR blend, the partition coefficient is as large as 3 in favor of BR. 

An important factor in determining the course of uptake, transport, and distribution of xenobiotics is their polarity. Compounds of low polarity tend to be lipophilic and of low water solubility. Compounds of high polarity tend to be hydrophilic and of low fat solubility. The balance between the lipophilicity and hydrophilicity of any compound is indicated by its octanol-water partition coefficient (K J, a value determined when equilibrium is reached between the two adjoining phases ... 

The solubilization of amino acids in AOT-reversed micelles has been widely investigated showing the importance of the hydrophobic effect as a driving force in interfacial solubihzation [153-157]. Hydrophilic amino acids are solubilized in the aqueous micellar core through electrostatic interactions. The amino acids with strongly hydrophobic groups are incorporated mainly in the interfacial layer. The partition coefficient for tryptophan and micellar shape are affected by the loading ratio of tryptophan to AOT [158],... 

The importance of lipophilicity to bitterness has been well established, both directly and indirectly. The importance of partitioning effects in bitterness perception has been stressed by Rubin and coworkers, and Gardner demonstrated that the threshold concentration of bitter amino acids and peptides correlates very well with molecular connectivity (which is generally regarded as a steric parameter, but is correlated with the octanol-water partition coefficient ). Studies on the surface pressure in monolayers of lipids from bovine, circumvallate papillae also indicated that there is a very good correlation between the concentration of a bitter compound that is necessary in order to give an increase in the surface pressure with the taste threshold in humans. These results and the observations of others suggested that the ability of bitter compounds to penetrate cell membranes is an important factor in bitterness perception. 

Further supporting evidence for the importance of lipophilicity in bitter response is provided by the taste of isohumulone (118), the principal, bitter-tasting component of beer, and some of its derivatives. Isohumulone can exist in both cis and trans forms. Clarke and Hilderbrand reported that the cis form, having a partition coefficient of 0.78, is more bitter than... 

From an analysis of the key properties of compounds in the World Dmg Index the now well accepted Rule-of-5 has been derived [25, 26]. It was concluded that compounds are most Hkely to have poor absorption when MW>500, calculated octanol-water partition coefficient Clog P>5, number of H-bond donors >5 and number of H-bond acceptors >10. Computation of these properties is now available as a simple but efficient ADME screen in commercial software. The Rule-of-5 should be seen as a qualitative absorption/permeabiHty predictor [43], rather than a quantitative predictor [140]. The Rule-of-5 is not predictive for bioavail-abihty as sometimes mistakenly is assumed. An important factor for bioavailabihty in addition to absorption is liver first-pass effect (metaboHsm). The property distribution in drug-related chemical databases has been studied as another approach to understand drug-likeness [141, 142]. 

Polar surface area (PSA) - defined simply as the part of a molecular surface that is polar - is probably, together with the octanol-water partition coefficient, one of the most important parameters used to characterize the transport properties of drugs. PSA has been shown to provide very good correlations with intestinal... 

The following physico-chemical properties of the analyte(s) are important in method development considerations vapor pressure, ultraviolet (UV) absorption spectrum, solubility in water and in solvents, dissociation constant(s), n-octanol/water partition coefficient, stability vs hydrolysis and possible thermal, photo- or chemical degradation. These valuable data enable the analytical chemist to develop the most promising analytical approach, drawing from the literature and from his or her experience with related analytical problems, as exemplified below. Gas chromatography (GC) methods, for example, require a measurable vapor pressure and a certain thermal stability as the analytes move as vaporized molecules within the mobile phase. On the other hand, compounds that have a high vapor pressure will require careful extract concentration by evaporation of volatile solvents. 

For symmetrical electrolytes, of, e.g., type 1 1, such a liquid-liquid interface, in equilibrium, is described by the standard Galvani potential, usually called the distribution potential. This very important quantity can be expressed in the three equivalent forms, i.e., using the ionic standard potentials, or standard Gibbs energies of transfer, and employing the limiting ionic partition coefficients [3] ... 

In the introduction we asserted that it was important to use the correct partition coefficients when interpreting U-series data. Both the ratio of daughter and parent partition coefficients and their absolute values are important. Small errors in the ratio can propagate to quite large errors in predictions of activity ratios even when the source material is assumed to have a parent-daughter ratio of unity (i.e., in radioactive... 

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