Per- and polyfluoro toxicity (LC(50) inhalation) study in rat and mouse using QSAR modeling

Abstract

Fully or partially fluorinated compounds, known as per- and polyfluorinated chemicals are widely distributed in the environment and released because of their use in different household and industrial products. Few of these long chain per- and polyfluorinated chemicals are classified as emerging pollutants, and their environmental and toxicological effects are unveiled in the literature. This has diverted the production of long chain compounds, considered as more toxic, to short chains, but concerns regarding the toxicity of both types of per- and polyfluorinated chemicals are alarming. There are few experimental data available on the environmental behavior and toxicity of these compounds, and moreover, toxicity profiles are found to be different for the types of animals and species used. Quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR) is applied to a combination of short and long chain per- and polyfluorinated chemicals, for the first time, to model and predict the toxicity on two species of rodents, rat (Rattus) and mouse (Mus), by modeling inhalation (LC(50)) data. Multiple linear regression (MLR) models using the ordinary-least-squares (OLS) method, based on theoretical molecular descriptors selected by genetic algorithm (GA), were used for QSAR studies. Training and prediction sets were prepared a priori, and these sets were used to derive statistically robust and predictive (both internally and externally) models. The structural applicability domain (AD) of the model was verified on a larger set of per- and polyfluorinated chemicals retrieved from different databases and journals. The descriptors involved, the similarities, and the differences observed between models pertaining to the toxicity related to the two species are discussed. Chemometric methods such as principal component analysis (PCA) and multidimensional scaling (MDS) were used to select most toxic compounds from those within the AD of both models, which will be subjected to experimental tests under the EU project CADASTER.