Formatting ToxCast and ICE cHTS data into OECD reporting templates
OECD has developed internationally agreed-upon formats for reporting of intermediate effect and mechanistic information from new approach methodology (NAM) studies. OECD Guidance Document 211 serves as a standard for comprehensive assay documentation describing non-guideline in vitro test methods and their interpretation. OECD Harmonized Template 201 (OHT201) is a harmonized template for reporting chemical test result summaries for intermediate effects.
ToxCast assay description documentation aligns with Guidance Document 211 standards to describe experimental systems, protocols, performance metrics, and assay quality statistics. Major software and database enhancements to tcpl and invitroDB warranted a complete overhaul to existing assay description documentation. ToxCast annotations are being leveraged to populate stipulated fields for automated report generation and direct additional curation efforts. A compiled report is expected to be released in fall 2024 and accompany ToxCast’s invitroDB v4.2 release.
It is envisioned that widespread use of OHT201 will harmonize data at an international level, facilitate international adoption of standardized NAMs data and make data more accessible. However, curated high-throughput screening (cHTS) data available in NICEATM's ICE do not conform to the OHT201 format. To address this, NICEATM began working with EPA and European Commission JRC collaborators in October 2023 to apply the OHT201 formatting to ICE cHTS data. Collaborators are identifying fields and data points that need to be populated in OHT201 form using annotations from ICE, EPA annotations retrieved from the CompTox Chemicals Dashboard, and OECD’s “Guidance Document for Describing Non-Guideline In Vitro Test Methods.” The group is also developing a formatting automation pipeline to apply a KNIME workflow to the European Chemicals Agency’s International Uniform Chemical Information Database software to map these annotations to the OHT 201 standardized template. Completed OHT201 forms for active chemical-assay pairs within the ICE cHTS dataset are anticipated to be available at the end of 2024.