Nonlinear Dependence of Fish Bioconcentration on n-Octanol/Water Partition Coefficient

Abstract

The log-log relationship between the bioconcentration tendency of organic chemicals in fish and the n?octanol/water partition coefficients breaks down for very hydrophobic compounds. The use of parabolic and bilinear models allows this problem to be overcome. The QSAR equation log BCF = 0.910 log P - 1.975 log (6.8 10^?7 P + 1) - 0.786 (n = 154; r = 0.950; s = 0.347; F = 463.51) was found to be a good predictor of bioconcentration in fish.     

Modelling bioconcentration of pesticides in fish using biopartitioning micellar chromatography

Ecotoxicity assessment is essential before placing new chemical substances on the market. An investigation of the use of the chromatographic retention (log k) in biopartitioning micellar chromatography (BMC) as an in vitro approach to evaluate the bioconcentration factor (BCF) of pesticides in fish is proposed. A heterogeneous set of 85 pesticides from six chemical families was used. For pesticides exhibiting bioconcentration in fish (experimental log BCF > 2), a quantitative retention-activity relationships (QRAR) model is able to perform precise log BCF estimations of new pesticides. Considering the present data, the results based on log k seem to be more reliable than those from available software (BCFWIN and KOWWIN) and from log P (quantitative structure-activity relationships (QSAR)). It is also possible to perform risk assessment tasks fixing a threshold value for log k, which substitute two common threshold values, log P and experimental log BCF, avoiding the experimental problems related with these two parameters.     

Estimation and Prediction of Bioconcentration Factors of Nonionic Organic Chemicals in Fish by Electrotopological State Indices and Structural Parameter

Based on the characteristics of atom types, Hall＇s electrotopological state indices （En） are calculated for 165 nonionic organic compounds. On the basis of the characteristics of substituent and conjugated matrix, a novel molecular structure parameter （G） is defined and calculated for 165 molecules in this paper. En and G show good structural selectivity for organic molecules. G, a satisfactory relationship between bioconcentration factor （BCF） and En, is expressed as： 1gBCF = -0.283 ＋ 1.246G ＋ 0.079E42 ＋ 0.351E9- 0.063E17 （n＇ = 122, R = 0.967, F = 425.636, s = 0.394）, which could provide estimation and prediction for the lgBCF of nonionic organic chemicals. Furthermore, the model is examined to validate overall robustness with Jackknife tests, and the independent variables in model do not exist cross correlation with VIF. All these regression results show that the new parameter G and electrotopological state index have good rationality and efficiency. It is concluded that the En and G will be used widely in quantitative structure-property/activity relationship （QSPR/QSAR） research.