Exploration of the DARTable Genome- a Resource Enabling Data-Driven NAMs for Developmental and Reproductive Toxicity Prediction.

The identification of developmental and reproductive toxicity (DART) is a critical component of toxicological evaluations of chemical safety. Adverse Outcome Pathways (AOPs) provide a framework to describe biological processes leading to a toxic effect and can provide insights in understanding the mechanisms underlying toxicological endpoints and aid the development of new approach methods (NAMs). Integrated approaches to testing and assessment (IATA) can be developed based on AOP knowledge and can serve as pragmatic approaches to chemical hazard characterization using NAMs. However, DART effects remain difficult to predict given the diversity of biological mechanisms operating during ontogenesis and consequently, the considerable number of potential molecular initiating events (MIEs) that might trigger a DART Adverse Outcome (DART AO). Consequently, two challenges that need to be overcome to create an AOP-based DART IATA are having sufficient knowledge of relevant biology and using this knowledge to determine the appropriate selection of cell systems that provide sufficient coverage of that biology. The wealth of modern biological and bioinformatics data can be used to provide this knowledge. Here we demonstrate the utility of bioinformatics analyses to address these questions. We integrated known DART MIEs with gene-developmental phenotype information to curate the hypothetical human DARTable genome (HDG, ∼5 k genes) which represents the comprehensive set of biomarkers for DART. Using network analysis of the human interactome, we show that HDG genes have distinct connectivity compared to other genes. HDG genes have higher node degree with lower neighborhood connectivity, betweenness centralities and average shortest path length. Therefore, HDG is highly connected to itself and to the wider network and not only to their local community. Also, by comparison with the Druggable Genome we show how the HDG can be prioritized to identify potential MIEs based on potential to interact with small molecules. We demonstrate how the HDG in combination with gene expression data can be used to select a panel of relevant cell lines (RD-1, OVCAR-3) for inclusion in an IATA and conclude that bioinformatic analyses can provide the necessary insights and serve as a resource for the development of a screening panel for a DART IATA.

Contribution of ATM and ATR kinase pathways to p53-mediated response in etoposide and methyl methanesulfonate induced DNA damage.

p53 is a key integrator of cellular response to DNA damage, supporting post-translational repair and driving transcription-mediated responses including cell cycle arrest, apoptosis, and repair. DNA damage sensing kinases recognize different types of DNA damage and initiate specific responses through various post-translational modifications of p53. This study evaluated chemical specificity of the p53 pathway response by manipulating p53 or its upstream kinases and assessing the effect on DNA damage and cellular responses to prototype chemicals: etoposide (ETP, topoisomerase II inhibitor) and methyl methane sulfonate (MMS, alkylating agent). p53-deficient cells demonstrated reduced accumulation of the p53 target proteins MDM2, p21, and Wip1; reduced apoptotic response; and increased DNA damage (p-H2AX and micronuclei) with both chemicals. However, p53 was not essential for cell cycle arrest in HT1080 or HCT116 cells. The two chemicals induced different patterns of kinase activation, particularly in terms of Chk 1, Chk 2, p38, and ERK 1/2. However, inhibition of the ATM pathway showed a greater effect on p53 activtation, apoptosis, and accumulation of DNA damage than ATR-Chk 1 or the MAP kinases regardless of the chemical used. These results indicate that ATM is the predominant upstream kinase responsible for activation of the p53-mediated DNA damage response for both MMS and ETP, though the downstream kinase response is markedly different. Environ. Mol. Mutagen. 58:72-83, 2017. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Pathway Based Toxicology and Fit-for-Purpose Assays.

The field of toxicity testing for non-pharmaceutical chemicals is in flux with multiple initiatives in North America and the EU to move away from animal testing to mode-of-action based in vitro assays. In this arena, there are still obstacles to overcome, such as developing appropriate cellular assays, creating pathway-based dose-response models and refining in vitro-in vivo extrapolation (IVIVE) tools. Overall, it is necessary to provide assurances that these new approaches are adequately protective of human and ecological health. Another major challenge for individual scientists and regulatory agencies is developing a cultural willingness to shed old biases developed around animal tests and become more comfortable with mode-of-action based assays in human cells. At present, most initiatives focus on developing in vitro alternatives and assessing how well these alternative methods reproduce past results related to predicting organism level toxicity in intact animals. The path forward requires looking beyond benchmarking against high dose animal studies. We need to develop targeted cellular assays, new cell biology-based extrapolation models for assessing regions of safety for chemical exposures in human populations, and mode-of-action-based approaches which are constructed on an understanding of human biology. Furthermore, it is essential that assay developers have the flexibility to 'validate' against the most appropriate mode-of-action data rather than against apical endpoints in high dose animal studies. This chapter demonstrates the principles of fit-for-purpose assay development using pathway-targeted case studies. The projects include p53-mdm2-mediated DNA-repair, estrogen receptor-mediated cell proliferation and PPARα receptor-mediated liver responses.

Contributions of DNA repair and damage response pathways to the non-linear genotoxic responses of alkylating agents.

From a risk assessment perspective, DNA-reactive agents are conventionally assumed to have genotoxic risks at all exposure levels, thus applying a linear extrapolation for low-dose responses. New approaches discussed here, including more diverse and sensitive methods for assessing DNA damage and DNA repair, strongly support the existence of measurable regions where genotoxic responses with increasing doses are insignificant relative to control. Model monofunctional alkylating agents have in vitro and in vivo datasets amenable to determination of points of departure (PoDs) for genotoxic effects. A session at the 2013 Society of Toxicology meeting provided an opportunity to survey the progress in understanding the biological basis of empirically-observed PoDs for DNA alkylating agents. Together with the literature published since, this review discusses cellular pathways activated by endogenous and exogenous alkylation DNA damage. Cells have evolved conserved processes that monitor and counteract a spontaneous steady-state level of DNA damage. The ubiquitous network of DNA repair pathways serves as the first line of defense for clearing of the DNA damage and preventing mutation. Other biological pathways discussed here that are activated by genotoxic stress include post-translational activation of cell cycle networks and transcriptional networks for apoptosis/cell death. The interactions of various DNA repair and DNA damage response pathways provide biological bases for the observed PoD behaviors seen with genotoxic compounds. Thus, after formation of DNA adducts, the activation of cellular pathways can lead to the avoidance of a mutagenic outcome. The understanding of the cellular mechanisms acting within the low-dose region will serve to better characterize risks from exposures to DNA-reactive agents at environmentally-relevant concentrations.

Implementing Toxicity Testing in the 21st Century (TT21C): Making safety decisions using toxicity pathways, and progress in a prototype risk assessment.

Risk assessment methodologies in toxicology have remained largely unchanged for decades. The default approach uses high dose animal studies, together with human exposure estimates, and conservative assessment (uncertainty) factors or linear extrapolations to determine whether a specific chemical exposure is 'safe' or 'unsafe'. Although some incremental changes have appeared over the years, results from all new approaches are still judged against this process of extrapolating high-dose effects in animals to low-dose exposures in humans. The US National Research Council blueprint for change, entitled Toxicity Testing in the 21st Century: A Vision and Strategy called for a transformation of toxicity testing from a system based on high-dose studies in laboratory animals to one founded primarily on in vitro methods that evaluate changes in normal cellular signalling pathways using human-relevant cells or tissues. More recently, this concept of pathways-based approaches to risk assessment has been expanded by the description of 'Adverse Outcome Pathways' (AOPs). The question, however, has been how to translate this AOP/TT21C vision into the practical tools that will be useful to those expected to make safety decisions. We have sought to provide a practical example of how the TT21C vision can be implemented to facilitate a safety assessment for a commercial chemical without the use of animal testing. To this end, the key elements of the TT21C vision have been broken down to a set of actions that can be brought together to achieve such a safety assessment. Such components of a pathways-based risk assessment have been widely discussed, however to-date, no worked examples of the entire risk assessment process exist. In order to begin to test the process, we have taken the approach of examining a prototype toxicity pathway (DNA damage responses mediated by the p53 network) and constructing a strategy for the development of a pathway based risk assessment for a specific chemical in a case study mode. This contribution represents a 'work-in-progress' and is meant to both highlight concepts that are well-developed and identify aspects of the overall process which require additional development. To guide our understanding of what a pathways-based risk assessment could look like in practice, we chose to work on a case study chemical (quercetin) with a defined human exposure and to bring a multidisciplinary team of chemists, biologists, modellers and risk assessors to work together towards a safety assessment. Our goal was to see if the in vitro dose response for quercetin could be sufficiently understood to construct a TT21C risk assessment without recourse to rodent carcinogenicity study data. The data presented include high throughput pathway biomarkers (p-H2AX, p-ATM, p-ATR, p-Chk2, p53, p-p53, MDM2 and Wip1) and markers of cell-cycle, apoptosis and micronuclei formation, plus gene transcription in HT1080 cells. Eighteen point dose response curves were generated using flow cytometry and imaging to determine the concentrations that resulted in significant perturbation. NOELs and BMDs were compared to the output from biokinetic modelling and the potential for in vitro to in vivo extrapolation explored. A first tier risk assessment was performed comparing the total quercetin concentration in the in vitro systems with the predicted total quercetin concentration in plasma and tissues. The shortcomings of this approach and recommendations for improvement are described. This paper therefore describes the current progress in an ongoing research effort aimed at providing a pathways-based, proof-of-concept in vitro-only safety assessment for a consumer use product.

Profiling dose-dependent activation of p53-mediated signaling pathways by chemicals with distinct mechanisms of DNA damage.

As part of a larger effort to provide proof-of-concept in vitro-only risk assessments, we have developed a suite of high-throughput assays for key readouts in the p53 DNA damage response toxicity pathway: double-strand break DNA damage (p-H2AX), permanent chromosomal damage (micronuclei), p53 activation, p53 transcriptional activity, and cell fate (cell cycle arrest, apoptosis, micronuclei). Dose-response studies were performed with these protein and cell fate assays, together with whole genome transcriptomics, for three prototype chemicals: etoposide, quercetin, and methyl methanesulfonate. Data were collected in a human cell line expressing wild-type p53 (HT1080) and results were confirmed in a second p53 competent cell line (HCT 116). At chemical concentrations causing similar increases in p53 protein expression, p53-mediated protein expression and cellular processes showed substantial chemical-specific differences. These chemical-specific differences in the p53 transcriptional response appear to be determined by augmentation of the p53 response by co-regulators. More importantly, dose-response data for each of the chemicals indicate that the p53 transcriptional response does not prevent micronuclei induction at low concentrations. In fact, the no observed effect levels and benchmark doses for micronuclei induction were less than or equal to those for p53-mediated gene transcription regardless of the test chemical, indicating that p53's post-translational responses may be more important than transcriptional activation in the response to low dose DNA damage. This effort demonstrates the process of defining key assays required for a pathway-based, in vitro-only risk assessment, using the p53-mediated DNA damage response pathway as a prototype.

Pathways of Toxicity.

Despite wide-spread consensus on the need to transform toxicology and risk assessment in order to keep pace with technological and computational changes that have revolutionized the life sciences, there remains much work to be done to achieve the vision of toxicology based on a mechanistic foundation. To this end, a workshop was organized to explore one key aspect of this transformation - the development of Pathways of Toxicity as a key tool for hazard identification based on systems biology. Several issues were discussed in depth in the workshop: The first was the challenge of formally defining the concept of a Pathway of Toxicity (PoT), as distinct from, but complementary to, other toxicological pathway concepts such as mode of action (MoA). The workshop came up with a preliminary definition of PoT as "A molecular definition of cellular processes shown to mediate adverse outcomes of toxicants". It is further recognized that normal physiological pathways exist that maintain homeostasis and these, sufficiently perturbed, can become PoT. Second, the workshop sought to define the adequate public and commercial resources for PoT information, including data, visualization, analyses, tools, and use-cases, as well as the kinds of efforts that will be necessary to enable the creation of such a resource. Third, the workshop explored ways in which systems biology approaches could inform pathway annotation, and which resources are needed and available that can provide relevant PoT information to the diverse user communities.

Dose-response modeling of etoposide-induced DNA damage response.

The 2007 National Research Council Report "Toxicity Testing in the 21st Century: A Vision and A Strategy" recommended an integrated, toxicity pathway-oriented approach for chemical testing. As an integral component of the recommendation, computational dose-response modeling of toxicity pathways promises to provide mechanistic interpretation and prediction of adverse cellular outcomes. Among the many toxicity pathways, the DNA damage response is better characterized and thus more suited for computational modeling. In the present study, we formulated a minimal mathematical model of this pathway to examine the dose response for etoposide (ETP), an anticancer drug that causes DNA double strand breaks (DSBs). In the model, DSB results from inhibition of topoisomerase by ETP and p53 is activated by a bistable switch composed of a positive feedback loop between ATM and γH2AX. Our stochastic model recapitulated the dose response for several molecular biomarkers measured with flow cytometry in HT1080 cells, including phosphorylated p53, ATM, γH2AX, and micronuclei. Model simulations were consistent with a bimodal pattern of p53 activation and a graded population-averaged response at high ETP concentrations. The graded response was a result of heterogeneous activation of individual cells due to molecular stochasticity. This work shows the value of combining data collection on single cell responses and mechanistic, stochastic modeling to develop and test hypothesis for the circuitry of important toxicity pathways. Future studies will determine how well this initial modeling effort agrees with a broader set of experimental studies on pathway responses by examining a more diverse group of DNA-damaging compounds.

Genomic phenotyping by barcode sequencing broadly distinguishes between alkylating agents, oxidizing agents, and non-genotoxic agents, and reveals a role for aromatic amino acids in cellular recovery after quinone exposure.

Toxicity screening of compounds provides a means to identify compounds harmful for human health and the environment. Here, we further develop the technique of genomic phenotyping to improve throughput while maintaining specificity. We exposed cells to eight different compounds that rely on different modes of action: four genotoxic alkylating (methyl methanesulfonate (MMS), N-Methyl-N-nitrosourea (MNU), N,N'-bis(2-chloroethyl)-N-nitroso-urea (BCNU), N-ethylnitrosourea (ENU)), two oxidizing (2-methylnaphthalene-1,4-dione (menadione, MEN), benzene-1,4-diol (hydroquinone, HYQ)), and two non-genotoxic (methyl carbamate (MC) and dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO)) compounds. A library of S. cerevisiae 4,852 deletion strains, each identifiable by a unique genetic 'barcode', were grown in competition; at different time points the ratio between the strains was assessed by quantitative high throughput 'barcode' sequencing. The method was validated by comparison to previous genomic phenotyping studies and 90% of the strains identified as MMS-sensitive here were also identified as MMS-sensitive in a much lower throughput solid agar screen. The data provide profiles of proteins and pathways needed for recovery after both genotoxic and non-genotoxic compounds. In addition, a novel role for aromatic amino acids in the recovery after treatment with oxidizing agents was suggested. The role of aromatic acids was further validated; the quinone subgroup of oxidizing agents were extremely toxic in cells where tryptophan biosynthesis was compromised.

Genomic phenotyping of the essential and non-essential yeast genome detects novel pathways for alkylation resistance.

BACKGROUND: A myriad of new chemicals has been introduced into our environment and exposure to these agents can damage cells and induce cytotoxicity through different mechanisms, including damaging DNA directly. Analysis of global transcriptional and phenotypic responses in the yeast S. cerevisiae provides means to identify pathways of damage recovery upon toxic exposure. RESULTS: Here we present a phenotypic screen of S. cerevisiae in liquid culture in a microtiter format. Detailed growth measurements were analyzed to reveal effects on ~5,500 different haploid strains that have either non-essential genes deleted or essential genes modified to generate unstable transcripts. The pattern of yeast mutants that are growth-inhibited (compared to WT cells) reveals the mechanisms ordinarily used to recover after damage. In addition to identifying previously-described DNA repair and cell cycle checkpoint deficient strains, we also identified new functional groups that profoundly affect MMS sensitivity, including RNA processing and telomere maintenance. CONCLUSIONS: We present here a data-driven method to reveal modes of toxicity of different agents that impair cellular growth. The results from this study complement previous genomic phenotyping studies as we have expanded the data to include essential genes and to provide detailed mutant growth analysis for each individual strain. This eukaryotic testing system could potentially be used to screen compounds for toxicity, to identify mechanisms of toxicity, and to reduce the need for animal testing.