Abstract
THE relationship between the toxicity of metal cations and their physico-chemical properties has been considered in terms of electrode potential1,2, insolubility of the metal sulphide3, and electronegativity4. Danielli and Davies4 suggested that the toxicity of metal ions is determined by their ability to form un-ionized complexes with ionogenic groupings at the cell surface, and they have taken the electronegativity values of the metals as a measure of the tightness of covalent binding to these groups. The application of this hypothesis to the toxicity of a number of metal salts to fungal conidia5 has recently been questioned by Miller6. In his examination of my experimental results, Miller has arbitrarily disregarded the toxicities of metals less toxic than zinc by terming them “basically not toxic to fungus conidia” although they all possess measurable ED50 values. It was, of course, precisely to show that the same toxic mechanism may apply to a wide range of metal ions that these less toxic metals were examined.
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SOMERS, E. Fungitoxicity of Metal Ions. Nature 187, 427–428 (1960). https://doi.org/10.1038/187427a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/187427a0
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