Structural activity relationship approaches for assessing genotoxicity

: The focus of the latest legislative and governmental efforts is to establish simple screening tools for identifying those chemicals most likely to cause adverse effects without experimental testing of all chemicals of regulatory concern. The use of structure-activity relationship (SAR) models is a powerful in silico technique that should be considered for prioritizing chemicals for subsequent experimental verification. Because carcinogenicity and genotoxicity are among the toxicological endpoints that pose the highest concern for human health, efforts in SAR models for them have been much more pronounced than for any of the other human health end points. This review paper overviews the historical background of SAR models for predicting carcinogenicity and genotoxicity, the current status of capacity and usefulness of some in vitro genotoxicity SAR models, and their perspective.