Steric influences, Hansch

These efforts were guided by the study of quantitative structure-activity relationships (QSAR) following the Hansch approach. In this method linear free-energy related and other electronic, hydrophobic, and steric substituent constants are used for a quantitative analysis of the possible ways in which substituents may modulate bioactivity in a congeneric series. In the QSAR studies of benzoylphenyl ureas the electronic Hammett a-constants and the hydro-phobic Hansch n-constants were used. To measure the steric influences, steric substituent constants of a new type (B1,B2,B3,B4, and L) were applied which had recently been introduced by us and which give improved correlations in comparison with the steric Es constants used in the literature hitherto (21, 22). The constants B- toBj are measures of the widths of substituents in four rectangular directions. The L-constant accounts for the length of a substituent ... 

The influence of substituent groups on biological activity can be partly due to steric effects. Hansch has introduced the Taft steric parameter (p. 217) to allow for this, giving an Equation of the form of (63). 

The work by Hammett and Taft in the 1950s had been dedicated to the separation and quantification of steric and electronic influences on chemical reactivity. Building on this, from 1964 onwards Hansch started to quantify the steric, electrostatic, and hydrophobic effects and their influences on a variety of properties, not least on the biological activity of drugs. In 1964, the Free-Wilson analysis was introduced to relate biological activity to the presence or absence of certain substructures in a molecule. 

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