Quantitative structure–property relationship study of n-octanol–water partition coefficients of some of diverse drugs using multiple linear regression

A quantitative structure–property relationship (QSPR) study was performed to develop models those relate the structures of 150 drug organic compounds to their n-octanol–water partition coefficients (log Po/w). Molecular descriptors derived solely from 3D structures of the molecular drugs. A genetic algorithm was also applied as a variable selection tool in QSPR analysis. The models were constructed using 110 molecules as training set, and predictive ability tested using 40 compounds. Modeling of log Po/w of these compounds as a function of the theoretically derived descriptors was established by multiple linear regression (MLR). Four descriptors for these compounds molecular volume (MV) (geometrical), hydrophilic–lipophilic balance (HLB) (constitutional), hydrogen bond forming ability (HB) (electronic) and polar surface area (PSA) (electrostatic) are taken as inputs for the model. The use of descriptors calculated only from molecular structure eliminates the need for experimental determination of properties for use in the correlation and allows for the estimation of log Po/w for molecules not yet synthesized. Application of the developed model to a testing set of 40 drug organic compounds demonstrates that the model is reliable with good predictive accuracy and simple formulation. The prediction results are in good agreement with the experimental value. The root mean square error of prediction (RMSEP) and square correlation coefficient (R2) for MLR model were 0.22 and 0.99 for the prediction set log Po/w.