Studies on Chemical Carcinogens. XXIII. A Simple Method for Characterization of the Alkylating Ability of Compounds by using 4-(p-Nitrobenzyl) pyridine

Abstract

The present work provides a simple method for the characterization of alkylating agents by measuring the reaction selectivity toward 4-(p-nitrobenzyl) pyridine (NBP) in acetone containing phosphate buffer, evaluated in terms of the selectivity constant, SNBP, which is defined as log {[H₂O]/[NBP]×N%/(100-N%)}, where N% is the percentage molar fraction of NBP alkylation. S_NBP values were determined for about 40 kinds of halides, methanesulfonates, tosylates, sulfates, phosphates, nitrosoureas, and nitrosoguanidines. SNBP can replace the substrate constant, s, of the Swain-Scott equation, and SNBP's of some of the agents examined here were linearly correlated with the s values.