Quantitative structure-activity relationships for N-[N',N'-disubstituted-amino)acetyl]arylamines for local anesthetic activity and acute toxicity.

The synthesis and physicochemical properties of a series of N-[N',N'-disubstituted-amino)acetyl]arylamines are described. A QSAR method is applied to local anesthetic activity and acute toxicity by means of a "nonclassic" substituent variation involving a modification on both aryl and amino moieties. The choice of the different parameters (partition coefficient, pKa, connectivity index, molar refraction, and molar volume) is discussed and their different methods of determination are described. Molar refraction is the parameter which explains best the variance of the local anesthetic activity, and the quadratic regression with MR leads to a "posteriori" synthesis of one compound with optimized activity. However, the partition coefficient is the most explicative parameter for intravenous toxicity.