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

Penicillin antibiotics are one of the most important classes of pharmaceutical agents, both therapeutically and economically, in modem day usage. However a major clinical drawback is the incidence of immunologically mediated adverse reactions exhibited by the general population in response to their use. Using the techniques of classical QSAR we have produced statistically acid predictively valid models which relate i) the incidence of cutaneous rash induced by oral penicillins to the similarity in shape to benzyl penicillin (n = 14, r = 0.907), ii) the incidence of all subjective clinical adverse reactions induced by parenteral 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 side chain substituent (n = 11, r = 0.882).