Advancing Exposure Science through Chemical Data Curation and Integration in the Comparative Toxicogenomics Database.

Area of Science:

• Exposure science
• Toxicogenomics
• Environmental health

Background:

• Exposure science examines interactions between environmental stressors and biological receptors.
• The Comparative Toxicogenomics Database (CTD) is a public resource for understanding chemical effects on human health.
• Integrating exposure data into CTD enhances understanding of the exposome.

Purpose of the Study:

• To centralize and integrate exposure science data within the CTD.
• To create a freely available resource connecting exposures, chemicals, genes, diseases, and biological pathways.
• To facilitate the identification of relationships between real-world exposures and health outcomes.

Main Methods:

• Developed a manual curation paradigm for capturing exposure data from literature.
• Utilized controlled vocabularies and free text for four primary exposure concepts: stressor, receptor, exposure event, and outcome.
• Applied data from the Agricultural Health Study to demonstrate centralization and integration benefits.

Main Results:

• Described the curation process for exposure data.
• Demonstrated methods for accessing and analyzing integrated exposure data within CTD.
• Showcased how integration provides biological context for exposure data, promoting mechanistic understanding.

Conclusions:

• Curation and integration of exposure data in CTD offer new research opportunities.
• Enables correlation of exposures with human health outcomes and identification of molecular mechanisms.
• Improves the understanding of the exposome and environmental influences on health.