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The term half maximal effective concentration (EC50) refers to the concentration of a drug, antibody or toxicant which induces a response halfway between the baseline and maximum after a specified exposure time. It is commonly used as a measure of drug's potency.
The EC50 of a graded dose response curve therefore represents the concentration of a compound where 50% of its maximal effect is observed. The EC50 of a quantal dose response curve represents the concentration of a compound where 50% of the population exhibit a response, after a specified exposure duration.
It is also related to IC50 which is a measure of a compound's inhibition (50% inhibition). For competition binding assays and functional antagonist assays IC50 is the most common summary measure of the dose-response curve. For agonist/stimulator assays the most common summary measure is the EC50.
In biological systems, small changes in ligand concentration typically result in rapid changes in response, following a sigmoidal function.The inflection point at which the increase in response with increasing ligand concentration begins to slow is the EC50. This can be determined mathematically by derivation of the best-fit line. While relying on a graph for estimation is more convenient, this method yields less precise and less accurate results.
Many different equations can be used to derive an EC50. One possible function is:
The effects of a stressor or drug generally depend on the exposure time. Therefore, the EC50 (and similar statistics) will be a function of exposure time. The exact shape of this time function will depend upon the stressor (e.g., the specific toxicant), its mechanism of action, the organism exposed, etc. This time dependency hampers the comparison of potency or toxicity between compounds and between different organisms.
See also Edit
- Measures of pollutant concentration
- Dose-response relationship
- Certain safety factor
- IC50 (half maximal inhibitory concentration)
- LD50 (median lethal dose)
- Therapeutic index
- ↑ Introducing dose response curves, Graphpad Software
- ↑ EC50 definition
- ↑ definition of EC50 for quantal dose response curve
- ↑ Assay Operations for SAR Support NIH Chemical Genomics Center
- ↑ EC50 equation - see page 5
- Online IC50 Calculator
- Determination of IC50 values
- Neubig et al. International Union of Pharmacology Committee on Receptor Nomenclature and Drug Classification. XXXVIII. Update on terms and symbols in quantitative pharmacology. Pharmacol Rev. 2003 Dec;55(4):597-606.
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