Relationships between induction of anesthesia and mitotic spindle disturbances studied by means of principal component analysis.

A dataset comprising the activity of 30 compounds in 4 biological tests--anesthesia of tadpoles, anesthesia of frog heart, abnormal growth and spindle disturbances in Allium root tips--was re-evaluated by means of principal component analysis. A two-component model is required to explain the variation in biological activity of the compounds. It is found that abnormal growth is different from the other biological responses. When this test is excluded, as much as 90% of the variation is explained by a one-component model, the determining factor most probably being the lipophilic character of the compounds. Mammalian mitotic cells respond in a similar way to mitotic cells of Allium root tips. It is suggested that possible regularities in the dose-response relationships for anesthesia, teratogenic effects and generation of abnormal chromosome numbers require further exploration.