QUANTITATIVE STRUCTURE-ACTIVITY-RELATIONSHIPS IN THE PREDICTION OF PENICILLIN IMMUNOTOXICITY

Penicillin antibiotics are one of the most important classes of pharma ceutical agents, both therapeutically and economically, in modem day u sage. However a major clinical drawback is the incidence of immunologi cally mediated adverse reactions exhibited by the general population i n response to their use. Using the techniques of classical QSAR we hav e produced statistically acid predictively valid models which relate i ) the incidence of cutaneous rash induced by oral penicillins to the s imilarity in shape to benzyl penicillin (n = 14, r = 0.907), ii) the i ncidence of all subjective clinical adverse reactions induced by paren teral penicillins to the ClogP and Sterimol B2 parameters (n = 12, r = 0.940), iii) the incidence of gastro-intestinal disruption induced by parenteral penicillins to the number of methyl groups in the acyl sid e chain substituent (n = 11, r = 0.882).