ABSTRACT
Assessing chemical safety is essential to evaluate the potential risks of chemical exposure to human health and the environment. Traditional methods relying on animal testing are being replaced by 3R (reduction, refinement, and replacement) principle-based alternatives, mainly depending on in vitro test methods and the Adverse Outcome Pathway framework. However, these approaches often focus on the properties of the compound, missing the broader chemical-biological interaction perspective. Currently, the lack of comprehensive molecular characterization of the in vitro test system results in limited real-world representation and contextualization of the toxicological effect under study. Leveraging omics data strengthens the understanding of the responses of different biological systems, emphasizing holistic chemical-biological interactions when developing in vitro methods. Here, we discuss the relevance of meticulous test system characterization on two safety assessment relevant scenarios and how omics-based, data-driven approaches can improve the future generation of alternative methods.
ABSTRACT
SUMMARY: Biological data repositories are an invaluable source of publicly available research evidence. Unfortunately, the lack of convergence of the scientific community on a common metadata annotation strategy has resulted in large amounts of data with low FAIRness (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable). The possibility of generating high-quality insights from their integration relies on data curation, which is typically an error-prone process while also being expensive in terms of time and human labour. Here, we present ESPERANTO, an innovative framework that enables a standardized semi-supervised harmonization and integration of toxicogenomics metadata and increases their FAIRness in a Good Laboratory Practice-compliant fashion. The harmonization across metadata is guaranteed with the definition of an ad hoc vocabulary. The tool interface is designed to support the user in metadata harmonization in a user-friendly manner, regardless of the background and the type of expertise. AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION: ESPERANTO and its user manual are freely available for academic purposes at https://github.com/fhaive/esperanto. The input and the results showcased in Supplementary File S1 are available at the same link.
