Ecotoxicity Prediction Using 3D Descriptors

A vast quantity of chemicals are present in our environment and are considered indispensable to our high technological society. However, there are some chemicals that are hazardous and that can extensively impact both human health and the global environment. In Japan, ecotoxicity tests of chemical substances have been conducted with the goal of contributing to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) evaluation program for harmful high-production volume (HPV) chemicals since 1995. To date, only about 500 compounds have been tested. There is a possibility that quantitative structure-activity relationships (QSARs) may enable us to predict environmental toxicities and fates as well as the physical and chemical properties of compounds; therefore, the toxicity prediction by QSARs is a possible alternative to the measurements of their ecotoxicities. In this study, we generated QSAR models from toxicity tests of Daphnids using only 3D descriptors to examine the availability of particular 3D descriptors for predicting of the ecotoxicity of compounds with various structures. Predicton accuracy of the model generated in this study was adequate and improved compared to that of the model using only the n-octanol/water partition coefficient, logP(o/w).