Use of principal component analysis and a spectral mapping technique for the evaluation of the antifungal activity of anthracene-based synthetic dyes.

The antifungal activity of 14 anthracene-based synthetic dyes and 6 reference compounds was measured on 36 fungal strains and the data matrix was evaluated separately by principal component analysis (PCA) and using a spectral mapping technique (SPM). The dimensionality of the maps of principal component loadings and variables and the selectivity maps was reduced to two by non-linear mapping. Except for two compounds, the dyes showed marked antifungal activity. Calculations proved that both the strength and selectivity of the biological effect of anthracene-based dyes were highly dependent on the chemical structure of the dye and on the type of fungi. PCA and SPM revealed different aspects of the antifungal activity, therefore, their simultaneous application in future quantitative structure-activity relationship studies is highly recommended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]