[Characterizing the toxicity interaction of the binary mixture between DMSO and pesticide by the multi-effect...

Three groups of binary mixtures between dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO) and three widely used pesticides, dimethoate (DIM), dichlorvos (DIC), and metalaxyl (MET), were respectively constructed by using the direct equipartition ray design (EquRay). The luminescent inhibition toxicities of single chemical and binary mixtures to Vibrio qinghaiensis sp. -Q67 were determined by the microplate toxicity analysis (MTA). Selecting the concentration addition (CA) model as an additive reference, we developed a new multi-effect residual analysis (MERA) to quantitatively characterize the deviation of the observed toxicity from that predicted by the CA model, i. e. the degree of toxicity interaction. It was shown that the toxicity interactions between DMSO and pesticide were dominated by antagonism, and the highest antagonism distributed between -23% and -15%. The concentration ranges where antagonism existed and the degree of antagonism were influenced by the components in the mixture, the concentration ratios of the components, and the effect level. A comparison of the MERA with the conventional isobologram and the extended toxic unit summation revealed that the MERA characterizes the degree of toxicity interaction in the view of effect, with less limitation by different concentration ratios or effect levels. Therefore, the MERA can be used to evaluate the complex toxicity interactions taking place in binary mixtures.