Journal
TOXICOLOGICAL SCIENCES
Volume 184, Issue 2, Pages 183-190Publisher
OXFORD UNIV PRESS
DOI: 10.1093/toxsci/kfab113
Keywords
risk assessment; chemical regulation; AOP-KB; AOP-wiki; toxicology
Categories
Funding
- Danish Environmental Protection Agency as a project under the Centre on Endocrine Disrupters (CeHoS)
- Swedish Chemicals Agency [2020-01621]
- Swedish Research Council for Sustainable Development FORMAS [2020-01621]
- European Union [825100, 825753]
- Formas [2020-01621] Funding Source: Formas
- H2020 Societal Challenges Programme [825100] Funding Source: H2020 Societal Challenges Programme
- Swedish Research Council [2020-01621] Funding Source: Swedish Research Council
Ask authors/readers for more resources
The AOP framework organizes scientific knowledge to infer cause-effect relationships between stressor events and toxicity outcomes, supporting chemical safety assessment and regulatory toxicology. However, developing robust AOPs requires substantial work and time, leading to a proposed more pragmatic approach for AOP development.
The adverse outcome pathway (AOP) framework provides a practical means for organizing scientific knowledge that can be used to infer cause-effect relationships between stressor events and toxicity outcomes in intact organisms. It has reached wide acceptance as a tool to aid chemical safety assessment and regulatory toxicology by supporting a systematic way of predicting adverse health outcomes based on accumulated mechanistic knowledge. A major challenge for broader application of the AOP concept in regulatory toxicology, however, has been developing robust AOPs to a level where they are peer reviewed and accepted. This is because the amount of work required to substantiate the modular units of a complete AOP is considerable, to the point where it can take years from start to finish. To help alleviate this bottleneck, we propose a more pragmatic approach to AOP development whereby the focus becomes on smaller blocks. First, we argue that the key event relationship (KER) should be formally recognized as the core building block of knowledge assembly within the AOP knowledge base (AOP-KB), albeit framing them within full AOPs to ensure regulatory utility. Second, we argue that KERB should be developed using systematic review approaches, but only in cases where the underlying concept does not build on what is considered canonical knowledge. In cases where knowledge is considered canonical, rigorous systematic review approaches should not be required. It is our hope that these approaches will contribute to increasing the pace at which the AOP-KB is populated with AOPs with utility for chemical safety assessors and regulators.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available