AOP-Wiki have just announced the latest release of their web-based application for capturing, sharing and reviewing Adverse Outcome Pathway (AOP*) knowledge. This latest release incorporates third party tools for the first time, one of which is Wiki Kaptis.
Wiki Kaptis is the result of an ongoing collaboration between Lhasa Limited and AOP-Wiki. Lhasa Limited Principal Scientist, Alex Cayley – who has been working closely with AOP-Wiki throughout the collaboration – said: “This collaboration has been a really exciting and rewarding opportunity for our team. Wiki Kaptis aligns well with our Lhasa values, as an educational charity, helping to facilitate shared knowledge to promote progress within new toxicity assessment approaches. I think our new Wiki Kaptis application shows off the knowledge captured within AOP-Wiki in a way which allows for it to be interrogated and visualised like never before!”
The Adverse Outcome Pathway Wiki (AOP-Wiki) serves as a public repository of qualitative information for the international Adverse Outcome Pathway (AOP) development effort coordinated by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
The AOP-Wiki release communication described the thought process behind this decision: “The AOP-Wiki has opened its doors to third party tools. As the Wiki cannot possibly cover all functionalities that the stakeholder community might request, a series of pilot collaborations with outside software providers was initiated. Connections to their systems are now integrated into the AOP-Wiki. Novel ways of graphical AOP depictions, and support in identifying literature that strengthens the evidence behind AOP elements are now provided by third party tools. Based on these pilot experiences, more possibilities for such collaborations will be identified in the future.”
A shared aim of this ongoing collaboration is to improve AOP-Wiki knowledge visualisation and interrogation. The freely available Wiki Kaptis application displays AOPs from only the AOP-Wiki source (unlike Kaptis, which contains AOPs that have been written and highly curated by Lhasa scientists, using a broad range of available AOP knowledge sources). Improved AOP-Wiki knowledge visualisation has been achieved through Wiki Kaptis functionality that displays an AOP network from an AOP-Wiki Key Event (KE) of interest, allowing Wiki Kaptis users to easily understand the collateral impact of a KE, outside of a single AOP.
A secondary objective is to reveal new emergent pathways. Such new pathways have been revealed from existing AOP-Wiki knowledge, as a result of the AOP network creation – specifically, where a KE is present in more than one AOP, unknown relationships have been discovered.
View this AOP network within the freely available Wiki Kaptis – which is also now accessible directly from the AOP-Wiki website.
For more information on how Lhasa are using AOPs to support better safety assessments, please get in touch.
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*AOPs represent a formalised knowledge framework for capturing mechanisms leading to toxicity. AOPs start with a molecular initiating event (MIE) and through additional key events (KEs), lead to an Adverse Outcome (AO). Each sequential KE (including the MIE and AO) are connected to each other through key event relationships (KERs). Formally, each KE should be measurable and therefore can be linked to a relevant assay. AOPs are increasingly being used to rationalise mechanisms of toxicity. An understanding of AOPs and relevant assays available to measure KEs is more important than ever, with the current drive towards new approach methodologies (NAMs) for toxicity assessments – such as in vitro assays and in silico assessments.