Cluster analysis in predicting the carcinogenicity of chemicals using short-term assays

Cluster analysis can be a useful tool for exploratory data analysis to uncover natural groupings in data, and initiate new ideas and hypotheses about such groupings. When applied to short-term assay results, it provides and improves estimates for the sensitivity and specificity of assays, provides indications of association between assays and, in turn, which assays can be substituted for one another in a battery, and allows a data base containing test results on chemicals of unknown carcinogenicity to be linked to a data base for which animal carcinogenicity data are available. Cluster analysis was applied to the Gene-Tox data base (which contains short-term test results on chemicals of both known and unknown carcinogenicity). The results on chemicals of known carcinogenicity were different from those obtained when the entire data base was analyzed. This suggests that the associations (and possibly the sensitivities and specificities) which are based on chemicals of known carcinogenicity may not be representative of the true measures. Cluster analysis applied to the total data base should be useful in improving these estimates. Many of the associations between the assays which were found through the use of cluster analysis could be 'validated' based on previous knowledge of the mechanistic basis of the various tests, but some of the associations were unsuspected. These associations may be a reflection of a non-ideal data base. As additional data becomes available and new clustering techniques for handling non-ideal data bases are developed, results from such analyses could play an increasing role in strengthening prediction schemes which utilize short-term tests results to screen chemicals for carcinogenicity, such as the carcinogenicity and battery selection (CPBS) method (Chankong et al., 1985).