Chemical risk assessment can benefit from integrating informative biomarkers in human biomonitoring (HBM). Beyond exposure biomarkers, effect biomarkers inform on biological reactions in the body, potentially leading to adverse effects, while susceptibility biomarkers address inter-individual variability in exposure. DNA methylation of key genes shows promise as an effect biomarker but...

There is increasing awareness that chemical pollution of freshwater systems with complex mixtures of chemicals from domestic sources, agriculture and industry may cause a substantial chemical footprint on water organisms, pushing aquatic ecosystems outside the safe operating space. The present study defines chemical footprints as the risk that chemicals or...

Shinyscreen is an R package and Shiny-based web application designed for the exploration, visualization, and quality assessment of raw data from high resolution mass spectrometry instruments. Its versatile list-based approach supports the curation of data starting from either known or “suspected” compounds (compound list-based screening) or detected masses (mass list-based...

Children’s lead exposure in three mining-impacted residential areas (Črna, Mežica and Žerjav) was modelled using the Integrated Exposure Uptake Biokinetic Model for Lead in Children (IEUBK). Site-specific environmental and dietary Pb source values were determined for modelling. For the first time, dietary exposure from both market and local foods was...

Immune homeostasis is key to guarantee that the immune system can elicit effector functions against pathogens and at the same time raise tolerance towards other antigens. A disturbance of this delicate balance may underlie or at least trigger pathologies. Endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) are increasingly recognized as risk factors for...

This study investigates the immunomodulatory effects of BPA substitutes using in silico and in vitro approaches. A comprehensive in silico screening with Endocrine Disruptome of BPA and its 25 substitutes revealed that BPG, BPS-MAE, BPS-MPE, BPPH and PF201 have the highest potential to bind nuclear receptors. Based on the in...

Chemicals in the aquatic environment can be harmful to organisms and ecosystems. Knowledge on efect concentrations as well as on mechanisms and modes of interaction with biological molecules and signaling pathways is necessary to perform chemical risk assessment and identify toxic compounds. To this end, we developed criteria and a...

New Approach Methodologies (NAMs) in Next-Generation Risk Assessment (NGRA), integrating toxicokinetics (TK) with toxicodynamics (TD), provides an accurate evaluation of combined chemical exposures. This study assesses pyrethroids, which pose regulatory challenges due to their widespread use and cumulative exposure risks. A tiered NGRA framework was compared with conventional risk assessment...

In vitro transcriptomics holds promise for high-throughput, human-relevant data but is not yet integrated into regulatory decision-making due to the lack of standardized approaches. For genotoxicity assessment, transcriptomic biomarkers such as GENOMARK and TGx-DDI facilitate qualitative and quantitative analysis of complex in vitro transcriptomic datasets. However, advancing their use in...

Chemicals in the EU are mainly regulated based on their intended use. Each legal framework consists of requirements and guidance for hazard- and risk assessment, along with the associated decision processes e.g., registration or authorisation of chemicals for market access in the EU. As a single chemical may have multiple...

This work discusses reuse of chemical data across disciplines and the role of various data initiatives and projects including PARC, NORMAN-SLE, MassBank, WorldFAIR, PSDI and NFDI4Chem to facilitate increased data sharing. Improved machine-readable chemical data supports global research and interdisciplinary methodologies crucial for sustainable development and achievement of UNESCO’s Open...

Exposure to respiratory sensitizers (RSs) is the leading cause of occupational asthma. Although the prospective identification of RSs is important, there currently exists no OECD-approved test guideline for this endpoint. The adverse outcome pathway for respiratory sensitization consists of key event (KE) 1: binding of the respiratory sensitizer to a...

This report summarises the main findings and discussion from the European Commission (EC) workshop on “The Roadmap Towards Phasing Out Animal Testing for Chemical Safety Assessments” which was held in Brussels on 11–12 December 2023. The aim of the workshop was to gather ideas and opinions from individuals, organisations and...

Enniatins (ENNs) and beauvericin (BEA) are cyclic hexadepsipeptide fungal metabolites which have demonstrated antibiotic, antimycotic, and insecticidal activities. The substantial toxic potentials of these mycotoxins are associated with their ionophoric molecular properties and relatively high lipophilicities. ENNs occur extensively in grain and grain-derived products and are considered a food safety...

The persistent nature of the environmental contaminants per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) has recently received considerable attention, particularly because of their adverse effects on immune system functionality in the context of vaccine responses to infectious diseases. Following COVID-19 vaccination, some studies have shown a significant negative correlation between serum PFAS...

Under evolutionary pressure, the kinematic and energetic characteristics of animal locomotion have been optimized for survival. We investigated the kinematics and energetic performance of zebrafish eleutheroembryo escape swims triggered by electrical stimuli in fluids of increasing viscosity. Eleutheroembryos exhibited a decrease in both tail movement frequency and swimming velocity in...

Parkinson’s disease (PD), the second most common neurodegenerative disorder, is characterized by the progressive loss of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra pars compacta, leading to motor and non-motor symptoms. The neurotoxin 1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine (MPTP) has been extensively used in different animal species to develop chemical models of PD. This study...

MLinvitroTox is an automated Python pipeline developed for high-throughput hazard-driven prioritization of toxicologically relevant signals detected in complex environmental samples through high-resolution tandem mass spectrometry (HRMS/MS). MLinvitroTox is a machine learning (ML) framework comprising 490 independent XGBoost classifiers trained on molecular fingerprints from chemical structures and target-specific endpoints from the...

Spatial data accuracy in environmental monitoring is crucial for practical large-scale data analytics and the development of AI models. In this context, spatial data is metadata and faces the same challenges as any other metadata, like missing values, false or contradicting information, formatting problems of textual data and numbers, the...

Plastic materials are ubiquitous, leading to constant human exposure to plastic additives such as plasticizers. There is growing evidence that plasticizers may contribute to obesity due to their disruptive effects on metabolism. Alternatives like diisononylcyclohexane-1,2-dicarboxylate (DINCH) are replacing traditional phthalates such as di-(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP), which are now banned due...