Progress and perspectives of quantitative structure-activity relationships used for ecological risk assessment of toxic organic compounds

Abstract

Structure-activity relationship (SAR) and quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR), collectively referred to as (Q)SARs, play an important role in ecological risk assessment (ERA) of organic chemicals. (Q)SARs can fill the data gap for physical-chemical, environmental behavioral and ecotoxicological parameters of organic compounds; they can decrease experimental expenses and reduce the extent of experimental testing (especially animal testing); they can also be used to assess the uncertainty of the experimental data. With the development for several decades, (Q)SARs in environmental sciences show three features: application orientation, multidisciplinary integration, and intelligence. Progress of (Q)SAR technology for ERA of toxic organic compounds, including endpoint selection and mathematic methods for establishing simple, transparent, easily interpretable and portable (Q)SAR models, is reviewed. The recent development on defining application domains and diagnosing outliers is summarized. Model characterization with respect to goodness-of-fit, stability and predictive power is specially presented. The purpose of the review is to promote the development of (Q)SARs orientated to ERA of organic chemicals. © 2008 Science in China Press and Springer-Verlag GmbH.