Studies on chemical carcinogens. XXI. Quantitative structure-mutagenicity relationship among substituted styrene oxides.

The quantitative structure-mutagenicity relationship among 8 substituted styrene oxides, p-methyl-, p-butyl, p-phenyl, p-chloro, m-chloro, p-cyano, p-nitro, and the parent styrene oxide, was examined. Mutagenic and cytocidal activities were correlated with the reactivity of the epoxide (Hammett's σ), the van der Waals volume of the molecule (VW), and/or the partition parameter (π). Multiple regression analyses revealed that mutagenic capacity could be well described by a linear combination of σ and log VW and that cytocidal capacity depended only on π of the derivatives, as already reported by Sugiura et al.