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PAVA: physiological and anatomical visual analytics for mapping of tissue-specific concentration and time-course data
Michael-Rock Goldsmith1, Thomas R Transue, Daniel T Chang
1National Exposure Research Laboratory, Human Exposure and Atmospheric Science Division, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 109 T.W. Alexander Drive, Research Triangle Park, NC 27711, USA. Goldsmith.rocky@epa.gov
Journal of Pharmacokinetics and Pharmacodynamics
|May 25, 2010
Summary
A new tool, Physiological and Anatomical Visual Analytics (PAVA), visualizes chemical exposure and biological data on human anatomy. This aids understanding complex data for systems biology and chemical risk management.
Area of Science:
- Computational biology
- Toxicology
- Biochemistry
- Molecular biology
- Epidemiology
- Pathology
Background:
- Physiologically-Based Pharmacokinetic (PBPK) modeling generates complex chemical disposition data.
- Visualizing experimental and simulated chemical time-course data (dosimetry) and Physiologically-Annotated Data (PAD) is challenging.
- Current methods lack integrated visualization of spatial and temporal biological and chemical data.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop and implement a novel web-based tool, Physiological and Anatomical Visual Analytics (PAVA).
- To visualize chemical dosimetry, epidemiological data, and PAD onto a 2D human anatomy representation.
- To support systems biology and chemical risk assessment by integrating diverse datasets.
Main Methods:
- Developed PAVA, a platform-independent, web browser-based application.
- Utilized a continuous color mapping scheme to integrate spatial (organ location) and temporal (time-course) data.
- Applied PAVA to visualize PBPK model outputs, organ-specific disease timelines, and tissue-specific mRNA expression profiles.
Main Results:
- PAVA successfully visualizes simulated chemical dosimetry from PBPK models.
- The tool enables visualization of PAD, including disease timelines and molecular expression data.
- Demonstrated the utility of PAVA for organ-level analysis and drawing molecular biological conclusions.
Conclusions:
- PAVA provides a valuable visual analytic tool for diverse scientific disciplines.
- The platform facilitates the translation, representation, and mining of complex PAD relationships.
- PAVA aids in understanding systems biology and managing chemical risk through enhanced data visualization.
