Toxicity Assessment of Atrazine and Related Triazine Compounds in the Microtox Assay, and Computational Modeling for Their Structure-Activity Relationship

The Computational Center for Molecular Structure and Interactions Department of Chemistry,Jackson State UniversityP. O. Box 17910, Jackson, Mississippi 39217,E-mail: jerzy@tiger.jsums.eduReceived: 14 February 2000 / Accepted: 3 July 2000 / Published: 13 October 2000Abstract: The triazines are a group of chemically similar herbicides including atrazine,cyanazine, and propazine, primarily used to control broadleaf weeds. About 64 to 80 millionlbs of atrazine alone are used each year in the United States, making it one of the two mostwidely used pesticides in the country. All triazines are somewhat persistent in water andmobile in soil. They are among the most frequently detected pesticides in groundwater.They are considered as possible human carcinogens (Group C) based on an increase inmammary gland tumors in female laboratory animals. In this research, we performed theMicrotox Assay to investigate the acute toxicity of a significant number of triazinesincluding atrazine, atraton, ametryne, bladex, prometryne, and propazine, and some of theirdegradation products including atrazine desethyl, atrazine deisopropyl, and didealkyledtriazine. Tests were carried out as described by Azur Environmental [1]. The proceduremeasured the relative acute toxicity of triazines, producing data for the calculation oftriazine concentrations effecting 50% reduction in bioluminescence (EC