A comparison of reactivity schemes for the prediction skin sensitization potential

Skin sensitization is an important toxic end point for both regulatory frameworks and safety assessment. There are many hurdles for a chemical to overcome in terms of inducing skin sensitization, although the binding of chemicals to skin protein is thought to be the rate-determining step. Current strategies to predict the skin sensitization potential of chemicals in silico is through the identification of electrophilic characteristics. A number of predictive schemes have been developed in recent years, some based on broad structural rules and some with a reaction chemistry mechanistic basis. This work compares two schemes that are based on reaction chemistry. The first scheme comprises a set of rules that characterize reaction mechanistic domains as proposed by Aptula and Roberts [(2006) Chem. Res. Toxicol. 19, 1097-1105]. The second is a set of structure-toxicity and structure-metabolism pathways that are encoded and embedded into the TIssue MEtabolism Simulator skin sensitization model (TIMES-SS) [(2005) Int. J. Toxicol. 24, 189-204]. Here, a comparison of these schemes has been made using a recently published data set of 210 chemicals that have been tested in the local lymph node assay. The similarities and differences of the schemes are highlighted, together with modifications that could be made to TIMES-SS to harmonize the two approaches.