International Commission for Protection Against Environmental Mutagens and Carcinogens. The importance of the hydrophobic interaction in the mutagenicity of organic compounds

Abstract

The derivation of new QSAR and the review of published QSAR for the mutagenicity of a variety of chemicals acting on a variety of bacterial systems uncovers two classes of equations. 12 examples include a term for hydrophobicity and of these 12, 11 require activation either by S9 or cytosolic enzymes for the reduction of nitro compounds. There are 4 examples of direct-acting mutagens which do not require activation. Of these 4, 3 do not contain a term for hydrophobicity. The odd example is that of the sulfonate esters which do not require activation, but contain a term in log P. The hydrophobicity factor is not correlated with the type of bacteria used for the test.