Development of quantitative structure–activity relationship (QSAR) models to predict the carcinogenic potency of chemicals. II. Using oral slope factor as a measure of carcinogenic potency

The overall risk associated with exposure to a chemical is determined by combining quantitative estimates of exposure to the chemical with their known health effects. For chemicals that cause carcinogenicity, oral slope factors (OSFs) and inhalation unit risks are used to quantitatively estimate the carcinogenic potency or the risk associated with exposure to the chemical by oral or inhalation route, respectively. Frequently, there is a lack of animal or human studies in the literature to determine OSFs. This study aims to circumvent this problem by developing quantitative structure–activity relationship (QSAR) models to predict the OSFs of chemicals. The OSFs of 70 chemicals based on male/female human, rat, and mouse bioassay data were obtained from the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) database. A global QSAR model that considered all 70 chemicals as well as species and/or sex-specific QSARs were developed in this study. Study results indicate that the species and sex-specific QSARs (r2 > 0.8, q2 > 0.7) had a better predictive abilities than the global QSAR developed using data from all species and sexes (r2 = 0.77, q2 = 0.73). The QSARs developed in this study were externally validated, and demonstrated reasonable predictive abilities.