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ToxSci Advance Access published online on March 16, 2006
Toxicological Sciences, doi:10.1093/toxsci/kfj157
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© The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society of Toxicology. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org
Received February 16, 2006
Accepted March 11, 2006

Safety Evaluation

Chemical Boundaries for Detection of Eye Irritation in Humans from Homologous Vapors

J. Enrique Cometto-Muñiz 1 *, William S. Cain 1, Michael H. Abraham 2, and Ricardo Sánchez-Moreno 2

1 Chemosensory Perception Laboratory, Department of Surgery (Otolaryngology), University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093-0957
2 Department of Chemistry, University College London, 20 Gordon Street, London WC1H 0AJ, UK

* To whom correspondence should be addressed.
J. Enrique Cometto-Muñiz, E-mail: ecometto{at}ucsd.edu


  Abstract

In a series of experiments we looked at a "cut-off" effect for the detection of eye irritation from neat vapors of homologous n-alkylbenzenes and 2-ketones. Stimuli comprised pentyl, hexyl, and heptyl benzene, 2-dodecanone, and 2-tridecanone, presented to each eye at 4 and 8 L/min for 6 sec., using a three-alternative, forced-choice procedure against blanks. Detection probability corrected for chance (i.e., detectability) decreased with carbon chain length such that heptyl benzene and 2-tridecanone were virtually undetectable, irrespective of flowrate to the eye. Heating both stimuli sources to 37°C (body temperature) from 23°C (room temperature), increased vapor concentration by 5.0 and 6.9 times, respectively, for heptyl benzene and 2-tridecanone. Still, both chemicals failed to show increased detection for 13 of the 21 participants. In addition, plots of experimentally measured and calculated eye irritation thresholds as a function of carbon chain length for each series indicated that, based on the trend, the concentration of the two cut-off homologs at 37°C should have been high enough to allow detection. Taken together, the results suggest that these cut-offs rest on limitations related to the dimension of the molecules rather than on limitations related to their vapor concentration. For example, the stimulus molecule could exceed the size that allows it to fit into the receptor pocket of a receptive protein. Plots of calculated molecular dimensions across homologous alkylbenzenes, from ethyl to dodecylbenzene, and across 2-ketones, from 2-octanone to 2-octadecannone, provided additional support to the above conclusion.

Keywords: Eye irritation cut-off; Ocular chemesthesis cut-off; Trigeminal chemoreception; Homologous n-alkylbenzenes; Homologous 2-ketones; Chemosensory structure-activity.
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