The mixture toxicity of heavy metals on Photobacterium phosphoreum and its modeling by ion characteristics-based QSAR

Abstract Organisms are frequently exposed to mixtures of heavy metals because of their persistence in the environment. The mixture toxicity of heavy metals should therefore be evaluated to perform a rational environmental risk assessment for organisms. In this study, we determined the inhibition toxicity of five heavy metals (Cu2+, Co2+, Zn2+, Fe3+ and Cr3+) and their binary mixtures to Photobacterium phosphoreum (P. phosphoreum). We obtained the following results: (1) the order of individual toxicity was Zn2+>Cu2+>Co2+>Cr3+>Fe3+, and (2) different combined