Affinities for the aryl hydrocarbon receptor, potencies as aryl hydrocarbon hydroxylase inducers and relative toxicities of polychlorinated biphenyls. A congener specific approach.

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are nonplanar aromatic xenobiotics that are not structurally related to polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins (PCDDs) and dibenzofurans (PCDFs), yet, some PCBs are potent ligands for the aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR), active inducers of aryl hydrocarbon hydroxylase (AHH) and 7-ethoxyresorufin O-deethylase (EROD), and elicit toxicological responses in animals similar to PCDDs and PCDFs. We report new methodologies for quantifying the affinities of PCBs for AhR and corresponding potencies as AHH and EROD inducers. The models show that lipophilicities, electron affinities, entropies and electronic energy gaps of PCBs are key physicochemical properties controlling their AhR, AHH and EROD activities. Using 3,3',4,4'-tetrachlorobiphenyl (TCB) as the reference compound, it is shown that PCBs having higher electron affinities, lower lipophilicities and entropies than TCB are potent ligands for rat hepatic AhR. In addition, the congeners having higher binding affinities to AhR and smaller energy gaps than TCB are potent AHH and EROD inducers in rat hepatoma cells in culture. The reported models qualitatively explain and quantify AhR, AHH and EROD activities of all 209-PCBs and related xenobiotics, e.g. PCDDs and PCDFs. Furthermore, we demonstrated that AhR and AHH activities of PCBs relative to 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin correlate with corresponding in vivo relative toxicities in animals as well as assigned toxic equivalency factors. The reported methodologies are likely to be useful for identifying potentially toxic aromatic xenobiotics in mammals, and minimizing the need for animal testing.