Four new Adverse Outcome Pathways published

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD’s) Environmental, Health and Safety (EHS) Programme has released a series of Adverse Outcome Pathway (AOP) documents to help improve knowledge of how chemicals induce adverse effects in humans and wildlife.

AOPs are the central element of a toxicological knowledge framework, built to support chemical risk assessment based on mechanistic reasoning.

The AOPs have been released following scientific review and OECD endorsement. It includes the following four single AOPs and a network of five AOPs addressing various toxicological and ecotoxicological pathways.

• No. 29: Oxidative DNA Damage Leading to Chromosomal Aberrations and Mutations.

• No. 30: Adverse Outcome Pathway on Impaired Interleukin-1 Receptor Type I (IL-1R1) Signaling Leading to Impaired T-cell Dependent Antibody Response.

• No. 31: Disruption of VEGFR Signaling Leading to Developmental Defects.

• No. 32: Adverse Outcome Pathway on Deposition of Energy Leading to Lung Cancer.

Some of these AOPs are considered of high regulatory relevance, as they are considered applicable to both human health and ecological risk assessments.