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Practical approaches to adverse outcome pathway development and weight‐of‐evidence evaluation as illustrated by ecotoxicological case studies
Citation:
Fay, K., Dan Villeneuve, C. LaLone, Y. Song, K. Tollefsen, AND G. Ankley. Practical approaches to adverse outcome pathway development and weight‐of‐evidence evaluation as illustrated by ecotoxicological case studies . SOCIETY OF ENVIRONMENTAL TOXICOLOGY AND CHEMISTRY JOURNAL. Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, Pensacola, FL, 36(6):1429–1449, (2017).
Impact/Purpose:
The need for AOP development and greater population of AOPs in the online knowledgebase has been widely recognized (e.g., OECD Project 1.29, Knapen et al 2015, Escher et al 2016; Groh et al 2015), but currently there are few AOP developers. To promote broader development of AOPs, and the inclusion of potential developers across various types of institutes and fields of study, this manuscript outlines strategies for initiating and expanding AOPs using four case studies. In addition to describing different approaches, many publically available online tools are identified with specific suggestions for how they may be used to support AOP development. Finally, this manuscript explicitly addresses how a developer may provide weight of evidence for an AOP and its components.
Description:
Adverse Outcome Pathways (AOPs) describe toxicant effects as a sequential chain of causally linked events beginning with a molecular perturbation and culminating in an adverse outcome at an individual or population level. Strategies for developing AOPs are still evolving and depend largely on the intended use or motivation for development. Four ecological AOP case studies, which were developed for different purposes, are described herein. In each situation, creation of the AOP began in a manner determined by the initial motivation for its creation, and expanded either to include additional components of the pathway, or to address the domains of applicability in terms of chemical initiators, susceptible species, life stages, etc. From these case studies, some general strategies can be gleaned which a developer may find useful for supporting an existing AOP or creating a new one. Several web-based tools which can aid in AOP assembly, as well as evaluation of weight of evidence for scientific robustness of AOP components are highlighted.
