Appendix B
Available Data or Databases
There are many sources of acute-toxicity data. They include peer-reviewed literature and secondary sources, such as The Merck Index (O’Neil 2013). Several acute-toxicity databases can be easily searched by using chemical name, CAS Registry number, chemical structure, and other identifiers, and some can also be searched on the basis of the type of study, toxic effect, species, sex, dose, exposure duration, and route of exposure. Some databases will tabulate the results of a search. Comprehensive overviews of major acute-toxicity databases are available (Tsakovska et al. 2006; Lapenna et al. 2010). Brief overviews of a few are described here.
Several US federal agencies maintain databases of toxicity data. The public version of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Toxicity Reference Database (ToxRefDB) contains data from chronic, subchronic, developmental, and reproductive studies. It is also linked to the agency’s ToxCast program. The EPA Aggregated Computational Toxicology Resource (ACToR) includes acute-toxicity data that are compiled from the Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS), Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Summary reports, and Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry documents. Unlike ToxRefDB, the ACToR database is not directly linked to acute-toxicity information on ToxCast or Tox21 chemicals. EPA also maintains the Toxic Substances Control Act Inventory and the SUPERLIST set of regulatory resources.
The National Library of Medicine (NLM) manages a network of databases called TOXNET®, which makes it possible to search for acute-toxicity information that is available in the Hazardous Substances Data Bank (HSDB). The most convenient means of accessing acute-toxicity information is through a chemical search that uses ChemIDplus, which has direct links to resources in NLM, other federal agencies, states, and scientific sites. The NLM databases contain records for more than 400,000 chemicals. NLM also maintains Web-site links at http://sis.nlm.nih.gov/chem/alllocators.html to other databases, such as the Canadian Domestic Substances List, the European Inventory of Existing Commercial Substances, the FDA Drugs@FDA system, and databases of the International Agency for Research on Cancer.
Several commercially available databases are also available. For example, Leadscope, Inc. markets a toxicity database that contains nearly 180,000 chemical structures and over 400,000 toxicity-study results derived from the US Food and Drug Administration Priority-based Assessment of Food Additives (PAFA) Database, the National Toxicology Program Chronic Database, the Registry of Toxic Effects of Chemical Substances (RTECS), and the DSSTox Carcinogenicity Potency Database (CPDB) (Leadscope 2012). Acute-toxicity data related to multiple exposure routes are available in the PAFA database and RTECS.
Several international databases are available. A multinational OECD database, eChemPortal1, is a no-cost publicly available acute-toxicity database that can be searched by using a variety of chemical identifiers. One of its strengths is that it includes classification results based on the Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals (GHS). The Europe-
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1See http://www.echemportal.org/echemportal/substancesearch/substancesearchlink.action.
an Chemicals Agency also manages an electronic database derived from Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation, and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) registration dossiers for chemical substances manufactured or imported in Europe. The OECD QSAR Toolbox is a software tool that facilitates the development, evaluation, justification, and documentation of chemical categories for read-across. It contains regulatory inventories, toxicity data, and chemical-structure information that encode structure–activity relationship information.
REFERENCES
Lapenna, S., M. Fuart-Gatnik, and A. Worth. 2010. Review of QSAR Models and Software Tools for Predicting Acute and Chronic Systemic Toxicity. EUR 24639. Luxembourg: Office of the European Union [online]. Available: http://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/bitstream/JRC61930/eur_24639_en.pdf [accessed March 30, 2015].
Leadscope. 2012, Comprehensive Source for Toxicity Data [online]. Available: http://www.leadscope.com/toxicity_database/ [accessed March 30, 2015].
O’Neil, M.J. 2013. The Merck Index: An Encyclopedia of Chemicals, Drugs, and Biologicals, 15th Ed. Cambridge: Royal Society of Chemistry.
Tsakovska, I., I. Lessigiarska, T. Netzeva, and A.P. Worth. 2006. Review of (Q)SARs for Mammalian Toxicity. EUR 22846 EN. Luxembourg: Office of the European Union.
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