INTERSPECIES TOXICITY CORRELATIONS OF RAT, MOUSE AND PHOTOBACTERIUM-PHOSPHOREUM

This study investigates quantitatively the interspecies relationships of the acute toxicity of 684 organic chemicals to the rat, the mouse, and the luminescent marine bacterium Photobacterium phosphoreum, commo nly known as the Microtox(R) test. The results indicate significant re lationships between the Microtox EC50 and rat and mouse LD50 values. T he goodness of fit increases strongly from the oral to the intraperito neal to the intravenous route of administration for each of the mouse and rat. Standard errors of the estimated rat values range from 0.52 t o 0.72 log units of toxicity (after and before outlier removal, respec tively) over a toxicity range of 4.6 (intraperitoneal) to 5.0 (oral) l og units (mmol/kg body weight) of toxicity. For each of the three rout es of administration, rat and mouse data are also highly correlated. T his allows the computation of rat toxicities from mouse data and vice versa with standard errors of the estimates of 0.28 (intraperitoneal) to 0.30 (oral) log units.