Computational ecotoxicology: Simultaneous prediction of ecotoxic effects of nanoparticles under different experimental conditions.

Computational ecotoxicology: Simultaneous prediction of ecotoxic effects of nanoparticles under different experimental conditions. Environ Int. 2014 Aug 28;73C:288-294 Authors: Kleandrova VV, Luan F, González-Díaz H, Ruso JM, Melo A, Speck-Planche A, Cordeiro MN Abstract Nanotechnology has brought great advances to many fields of modern science. A manifold of applications of nanoparticles have been found due to their interesting optical, electrical, and biological/chemical properties. However, the potential toxic effects of nanoparticles to different ecosystems are of special concern nowadays. Despite the efforts of the scientific community, the mechanisms of toxicity of nanoparticles are still poorly understood. Quantitative-structure activity/toxicity relationships (QSAR/QSTR) models have just started being useful computational tools for the assessment of toxic effects of nanomaterials. But most QSAR/QSTR models have been applied so far to predict ecotoxicity against only one organism/bio-indicator such as Daphnia magna. This prevents having a deeper knowledge about the real ecotoxic effects of nanoparticles, and consequently, there is no possibility to establish an efficient risk assessment of nanomaterials in the environment. In this work, a perturbation model for nano-QSAR problems is introduced with the aim of simultaneously predicting the ecotoxicity of different nanoparticles against several assay organisms (bio-indicators)...
Source: Environment International - Category: Environmental Health Authors: Tags: Environ Int Source Type: research