Solubility Structure-activity relationships

Registry of Toxic Effects of Chemicals (Sub-)Structural Alerts Statistical Analysis System Aqueous solubility Structure-Activity Relationship Self-Consistent Field Structure Data File Sex Hormone Binding Globulin Simplified Molecular Line Entry System... 

In 1868 two Scottish scientists, Crum Brown and Fraser [4] recognized that a relation exists between the physiological action of a substance and its chemical composition and constitution. That recognition was in effect the birth of the science that has come to be known as quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR) studies a QSAR is a mathematical equation that relates a biological or other property to structural and/or physicochemical properties of a series of (usually) related compounds. Shortly afterwards, Richardson [5] showed that the narcotic effect of primary aliphatic alcohols varied with their molecular weight, and in 1893 Richet [6] observed that the toxicities of a variety of simple polar chemicals such as alcohols, ethers, and ketones were inversely correlated with their aqueous solubilities. Probably the best known of the very early work in the field was that of Overton [7] and Meyer [8], who found that the narcotic effect of simple chemicals increased with their oil-water partition coefficient and postulated that this reflected the partitioning of a chemical between the aqueous exobiophase and a lipophilic receptor. This, as it turned out, was most prescient, for about 70% of published QSARs contain a term relating to partition coefficient [9]. 

Despite the work of Overton and Meyer, it was to be many years before structure-activity relationships were explored further. In 1939 Ferguson [10] postulated that the toxic dose of a chemical is a constant fraction of its aqueous solubility hence toxicity should increase as aqueous solubility decreases. Because aqueous solubility and oil-water partition coefficient are inversely related, it follows that toxicity should increase with partition coefficient. Although this has been found to be true up to a point, it does not continue ad infinitum. Toxicity (and indeed, any biological response) generally increases initially with partition coefficient, but then tends to fall again. This can be explained simply as a reluctance of very hydrophobic chemicals to leave a lipid phase and enter the next aqueous biophase [11]. An example of this is shown by a QSAR that models toxicity of barbiturates to the mouse [12] ... 

Raevsky, O. A., Schaper, K.-J. Physicochemical descriptors governing the solubility and partitioning of chemicals in water-solvent-gas systems. In Abstracts of 12th International Workshop on Quantitative Structure-Activity Relationships in Environmental Toxicology, Lyon, France, 2006, p. 23. 

Bocek K. 1976. Relationships among activity coefficients, partition coefficients and solubilities. In Tichy M, ed. Quantitative structure-activity relationships. Basel and Stuttgart Birkhauser Verlag, 231-240. 

There is a continuing effort to extend the long-established concept of quantitative-structure-activity-relationships (QSARs) to quantitative-structure-property relationships (QSPRs) to compute all relevant environmental physical-chemical properties (such as aqueous solubility, vapor pressure, octanol-water partition coefficient, Henry s law constant, bioconcentration factor (BCF), sorption coefficient and environmental reaction rate constants from molecular structure). 

Octanol/water partition coefficients, Pow, which measure the relative solubilities of solutes in octanol and in water, are widely used as descriptors in quantitative structure-activity relationships (QSAR), for example in pharmacological and toxicological applications.49 Since experimental values of these are not always available, a number of procedures for predicting them have been proposed (see references in Brinck et al.).50... 

There are several properties of a chemical that are related to exposure potential or overall reactivity for which structure-based predictive models are available. The relevant properties discussed here are bioaccumulation, oral, dermal, and inhalation bioavailability and reactivity. These prediction methods are based on a combination of in vitro assays and quantitative structure-activity relationships (QSARs) [3]. QSARs are simple, usually linear, mathematical models that use chemical structure descriptors to predict first-order physicochemical properties, such as water solubility. Other, similar models can then be constructed that use the first-order physicochemical properties to predict more complex properties, including those of interest here. Chemical descriptors are properties that can be calculated directly from a chemical structure graph and can include abstract quantities, such as connectivity indices, or more intuitive properties, such as dipole moment or total surface area. QSAR models are parameterized using training data from sets of chemicals for which both structure and chemical properties are known, and are validated against other (independent) sets of chemicals. 

Haag, W. R., and T. Mill, Direct and indirect photolysis of water-soluble azodyes Kinetic measurements and structure-activity relationship , Environ. Toxicol. Chem., 6, 359-369 (1987). 

QSAR Methods for Fluid Solubility Prediction, Several group contribution methods for predicting liquid solubilities have been developed. These methods as well as other similar methods are often called quantitative structure-activity relationships (QSARs). This field is experiencing rapid development. 

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