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Prioritizing Environmental Chemicals for Obesity and Diabetes Outcomes Research: A Screening Approach Using ToxCast High Throughput Data
Citation:
Auerbach, S., D. Filer, D. Reif, V. Walker, A. Holloway, J. Schlezinger, S. Srinivasan, D. Svoboda, R. Judson, J. Bucher, AND K. Thayer. Prioritizing Environmental Chemicals for Obesity and Diabetes Outcomes Research: A Screening Approach Using ToxCast High Throughput Data. ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH PERSPECTIVES. National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), Research Triangle Park, NC, , 1-50, (2016).
Impact/Purpose:
This review is intended to help researchers generate hypotheses about chemicals potentially contributing to diabetes and obesity-related health outcomes by summarizing relevant findings from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ToxCast high-throughput screening (HTS) program.
Description:
Background: Diabetes and obesity are major threats to public health in the US and abroad. Understanding the role chemicals in our environment play in the development of these conditions is an emerging issue in environmental health, although identifying and prioritizing chemicals for testing beyond those already implicated in the literature is a challenge. This review is intended to help researchers generate hypotheses about chemicals potentially contributing to diabetes and obesity-related health outcomes by summarizing relevant findings from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ToxCast high-throughput screening (HTS) program. Objectives: To develop new hypotheses around environmental chemicals of potential interest for diabetes- or obesity-related outcomes using high throughput screening data. Methods: Identify ToxCast assay targets relevant to several biological processes related to diabetes and obesity (insulin sensitivity in peripheral tissue, pancreatic islet and beta cell function, adipocyte dierentiation, and feeding behavior) and present chemical screening data against those assay targets to identify chemicals of potential interest. Discussion: Results of this screening-level analysis suggest that the spectrum of environmental chemicals to consider in research related to diabetes and obesity is much broader than indicated from research papers and reviews published in the peer-reviewed literature. Testing of hypotheses based on ToxCast data will also help assess the predictive utility of this HTS platform.
