Emerging Bioinformatic Tools in Toxicogenomics

Emerging Bioinformatic Tools in Toxicogenomics
Author: Danyel Jennen
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
Total Pages: 148
Release: 2020-02-27
Genre:
ISBN: 288963521X

Toxicogenomics was established as a merger of toxicology with genomics approaches and methodologies more than 15 years ago, and considered of major value for studying toxic mechanisms-of-action in greater depth and for classification of toxic agents for predicting adverse human health risks. While the original focus was on technological validation of in particular microarray-based whole genome expression analysis (transcriptomics), mainly through cross-comparing different platforms for data generation (MAQC-I), it was soon appreciated that actually the wide variety of data analysis approaches represents the major source of inter-study variation. This led to early attempts towards harmonizing data analysis protocols focusing on microarray-based models for predicting toxicological and clinical end-points and on different methods for GWAS data (MAQC-II). Simultaneously, further technological developments, geared by increasing insights into the complexity of cellular regulation, enabled analyzing molecular perturbations across multiple genomics scales (epigenomics and microRNAs, metabolomics). While these were initially still based on microarray technology, this is currently being phased out and replaced by a variety of next generation sequencing-based methods enabling exploration of genomic responses to toxicants at even greater depth (SEQC-I). This raises the demand for reliable and robust data analysis approaches, ranging from harmonized bioinformatics concepts for preprocessing raw data to non-supervised and supervised methods for capturing and integrating the dynamic perturbations of cell function across dose and time, and thus retrieving mechanistic insights across multiple regulation scales. Traditional toxicology focused on dose-dependently determining apical endpoints of toxicity. With the advent of toxicogenomics, efforts towards better understanding underlying molecular mechanisms has led to the development of the concept of Adverse Outcome Pathways, which are basically presented as a structural network of linearly related gene-gene interactions regulating key events for inducing apical toxic endpoints of interest. Impulse challenges from exposure of biological systems to toxic agents will however induce a cascade-type of events, presenting both adverse and adaptive processes, thus requiring bioinformatics approaches and methods for complex dynamic data, generated not only across dose, but clearly also across time. Currently, time-resolved toxicogenomics data sets are increasingly being assembled in the course of large-scaled research projects, for instance devoted towards developing toxicogenomics-based predictive assays for evaluating chemical safety which are no longer animal-based.

Applications of Toxicogenomic Technologies to Predictive Toxicology and Risk Assessment

Applications of Toxicogenomic Technologies to Predictive Toxicology and Risk Assessment
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 300
Release: 2007-12-19
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0309112982

The new field of toxicogenomics presents a potentially powerful set of tools to better understand the health effects of exposures to toxicants in the environment. At the request of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, the National Research Council assembled a committee to identify the benefits of toxicogenomics, the challenges to achieving them, and potential approaches to overcoming such challenges. The report concludes that realizing the potential of toxicogenomics to improve public health decisions will require a concerted effort to generate data, make use of existing data, and study data in new waysâ€"an effort requiring funding, interagency coordination, and data management strategies.

Toxicogenomics

Toxicogenomics
Author: Hisham K. Hamadeh
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 386
Release: 2004-09-06
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9780471434177

Toxicogenomics: Principles and Applications fills the need for a single, thorough text on the key breakthrough technologies in genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, and bioinformatics, and their applications to toxicology research. The first section following a general introduction is on genomics and toxicogenomics, and qPCR. The next sections are toxicoproteomics and metabolomics. The final section covers bioinformatics aspects, from databases to data integration strategies. A practical resource for specialists and non-specialists alike, this book includes numerous illustrations that support the textual explanations. It offers practical guidance to investigators wishing to pursue this line of research, and lists key relevant software and Internet resources.

Validation of Toxicogenomic Technologies

Validation of Toxicogenomic Technologies
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 98
Release: 2007-03-28
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 0309179947

Beginning in the early 1980s, new technologies, began to permit evaluation of the expression of individual genes. Recent technological advances have expanded those evaluations to permit the simultaneous detection of the expression of tens of thousands of genes and to support holistic evaluations of the entire genome. The application of these technologies has enabled researchers to unravel complexities of cell biology and, in conjunction with toxicologic evaluations, the technologies are used to probe and gain insight into questions of toxicologic relevance. As a result, the use of the technologies has become increasingly important for scientists in academia, as well as for the regulatory and drug development process.

Unsupervised Data Mining Applications on High Dimensional Gene Expression Time Series in Toxicogenomics

Unsupervised Data Mining Applications on High Dimensional Gene Expression Time Series in Toxicogenomics
Author: Ce Gao
Publisher:
Total Pages: 164
Release: 2015
Genre: Bioinformatics
ISBN:

Toxicogenomics, the study of adverse effects caused by toxicants to human health and environment via high-throughput genomics technologies, present promising alternatives to expensive and lengthy animal-based approaches in toxicity testing and risk assessment. Advances in toxicogenomics techniques now enable monitoring cellular activities continuously, under a large range of experimental and biological conditions and providing comprehensive and high-resolution information at molecular levels. The research interests in toxicogenomics center on key issues involving the quantification of molecular toxic effects, the linkage between molecular endpoints and phenotypic ones, the discernment of dose-response and pharmacokinetics relationships, as well as the integration of bioinformatics into predictive toxicology. In particular, the increasingly complex and voluminous toxicogenomics data pose great analytical challenges. The existing bioinformatics tools are incompatible with the high dimensionality and temporal dynamics of the data, possibly leading to unreliable and misinterpretation of the potential toxicity connotation. The objectives of this dissertation are to develop and demonstrate new or improved methodology that better address the challenges and limitations in high dimensional time series toxicogenomics data analysis for critical bioinformatics application such as toxicity mechanism identification, toxicants classification, and for predictive toxicology knowledge discovery. In this study, we develop new or improve bioinformatics data analysis algorithms so that they are capable of processing high dimensional time series toxicogenomics data, therefore better capture and reflect the dynamics of cellular response to toxicants. We also prove the potential and validity of the incorporation of various molecular disturbance/effect quantifiers into various functional toxicogenomics bioinformatics to provide quantitative insights into the toxicant-induced cellular molecular responses at individual gene, specific pathway and system levels. In addition, we demonstrate the effectives of unsupervised bioinformatics tools for mining new, more in depth, much-detailed and fundamental knowledge and understanding of toxicological information at molecular level. This research could generate new information to fill in the urgent knowledge gaps in toxicogenomics that present barriers to the realization of predictive toxicology and make contributions to several fields including toxicology, bioinformatics and environmental science.

Handbook of Toxicogenomics

Handbook of Toxicogenomics
Author: Jürgen Borlak
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 705
Release: 2006-03-06
Genre: Science
ISBN: 3527604510

Toxicogenomics is a new, dynamic and very promising field that can help optimize toxicity analyses and streamline research into active substances. It is of interest not only for basic research and development, but also from a legal and ethical perspective. Here, experts from all the fields mentioned will find solid information provided by an international team of experienced authors. With its approach as an interdisciplinary overview, it will prove particularly useful for all those needing to develop appropriate research strategies. The authors work for major research institutions, such as the Fraunhofer Institute of Toxicology and Experimental Medicine (Germany), the German Cancer Research Center, the National Institute of Environmental Health Science (USA), the National Institute of Health Science (Japan) or for companies like Affymetrix, Altana Pharma, Bayer, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bruker, Merck, Nimblegen, Novartis, and Syngenta. Coverage ranges from the technology platforms applied, including DNA arrays or proteomics, via the bioinformatics tools required, right up to applications of toxicogenomics presented in numerous case studies, while also including an overview of national programs and initiatives as well as regulatory perspectives. Walter Rosenthal, Director of the Research Institute for Molecular Pharmacology in Berlin, praises the book thus: "I would like to congratulate the publishers of this handbook, one that deals with a extremely hot topic. They have succeeded in gaining as authors leading representatives from this field. The Handbook impressively shows how modern genomic research is leading to rapid advances and new insights within toxicology."

Applications of Toxicogenomic Technologies to Predictive Toxicology and Risk Assessment

Applications of Toxicogenomic Technologies to Predictive Toxicology and Risk Assessment
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 300
Release: 2007-11-19
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0309178894

The new field of toxicogenomics presents a potentially powerful set of tools to better understand the health effects of exposures to toxicants in the environment. At the request of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, the National Research Council assembled a committee to identify the benefits of toxicogenomics, the challenges to achieving them, and potential approaches to overcoming such challenges. The report concludes that realizing the potential of toxicogenomics to improve public health decisions will require a concerted effort to generate data, make use of existing data, and study data in new waysâ€"an effort requiring funding, interagency coordination, and data management strategies.

Toxicogenomics

Toxicogenomics
Author: Tohru Inoue
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2013-03-09
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 443166999X

The meteoric rate at which the human genome is being sequenced has presented to the research community a vast array of newly discovered genes, which in tum has catalyzed an even more dramatic effort to decipher this voluminous data set into understanding how genes function both individually and in complex pathways that regulate the biochemistry of life. A compendium of gene expression data, enhanced by complete proteomic analysis, will enable investigators to probe into the complexities of the mechanisms of normal genetic and metabolic pathways and, subsequently, how disease occurs when they malfunction. The new science of toxicogenomics combines genomic, proteomic, and informatics technologies, and biological research can now foresee a time when there will be a full comprehension of the complex dynamic mechanisms of genetics, biochemistry, and physiology. The inherent power of toxicogenomics derives from an amalgamation of multiple scientific disciplines that were originally drawn together to facilitate sequencing the three billion bases that comprise the human genome. Traditionally, the science of toxicology has been founded upon empirical codification of dose-related effects. It has evolved to studies that are directed towards understanding the mechanisms by which individual agents cause their effects in humans. Due to technical limitations, this process has been relatively slow, since it has accomplished one chemical or one effect at a time.

Mixture Toxicity

Mixture Toxicity
Author: Cornelis A. M. van Gestel
Publisher: CRC Press
Total Pages: 312
Release: 2016-04-19
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 1439830096

In the last decade and a half, great progress has been made in the development of concepts and models for mixture toxicity, both in human and environmental toxicology. However, due to their different protection goals, developments have often progressed in parallel but with little integration. Arguably the first book to clearly link ecotoxicology an

Toxicogenomics in Predictive Carcinogenicity

Toxicogenomics in Predictive Carcinogenicity
Author: Russell S Thomas
Publisher: Royal Society of Chemistry
Total Pages: 524
Release: 2016-06-16
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 1782624058

Research over the past decade has demonstrated that TGx methods of various types can be used to discriminate modes of mutagenesis as a function of dose. TGx can quickly inform safety evaluation regarding potential mechanisms of conventional outcomes and can provide essential dose-response information. This can then be used to ascertain the sequence of key events in a putative mode of action as may apply in quantitative cancer risk assessment. With the increasing complexity of research in mode of action investigations it is important to gain a better understand of approaches to data integration and health risk assessment. Furthermore, it is essential to consider how novel test systems and newer methods and approaches may be used in future to gain a better understanding of mechanisms. Toxicogenomics in Predictive Carcinogenicity describes toxicogenomics methods in predictive carcinogenicity testing, mode of action and safety evaluation, and cancer risk assessment. It illustrates these methods using case studies that have yielded significant new information on compounds and classes of compounds that have proven difficult to evaluate using conventional methods alone. This book additionally covers current and potential toxicogenomic research using stem cells as well as new bioinformatics methods for drug discovery and environmental toxicology. This publication is an indispensable tool for postgraduates, academics and industrialists working in biochemistry, genomics, carcinogenesis, pathology, pharmaceuticals, food technology, bioinformatics, risk assessment and environmental toxicology.