Structure-acute toxicity relationship of aromatic hydrocarbons in mice

The structure-acute toxicity relationship of aromatic hydrocarbons was examined in mice. In all test compounds, the acute toxicity was determined under 2 conditions: control LD50 (LD50-cont) and carbon tetrachloride (CCl4)-pretreated LD50 (LD50-CCl4). The CCl4-pretreatment was done in order to evaluate the toxic potency of compound itself without the influence of metabolism. Both log (1/LD50-cont) and log (1/LD50-CCl4) were functions of the log P, n-octanol/water partition coefficient, i.e., log (1/LD50-cont) = 0.080 log P - 1.532 and log (1/LD50-CCl4) = -0.040(logP)2 + 0.157 log P - 1.373. Both equations were statistically significant (P < 0.01). The ratio of LD50-cont/LD50-CCl4 indicated that metabolic activation is more evident in hydrophobic compounds than in hydrophilic compounds. The results suggest that hydrophobicity of the aromatic hydrocarbons plays an important role in determining their acute toxicity.