Structure-genotoxic activity relationships of pesticides: comparison of the results from several short-term assays.

The Computer-Automated Structure Evaluation (CASE) program has been applied to the analysis of the genotoxic activity of 54 pesticides (31 insecticides, 15 herbicides and 8 fungicides) in 5 different short-term test systems measuring gene mutation and DNA damage. The database contains compounds presenting diverse structures including carbamates, thiocarbamates, organophosphates, halo-aromatics and other functionalities. Some significant relationships between common structural features and the genotoxic activity displayed by these chemicals have been found. Among the most relevant fragments, automatically selected by the program, a methoxyphosphinyl and a chlorovinyl group appear as the common structural subunits responsible for the activities detected in the battery composed of the Salmonella typhimurium histidine reversion assay, the mouse lymphoma gene mutation assay and recombination in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae.