Adverse outcome pathway

[1][2][3] The AOP links in a linear way existing knowledge along one or more series of causally connected key events (KE) between two points — a molecular initiating event (MIE) and an adverse outcome (AO) that occur at a level of biological organization relevant to risk assessment.

A guidance document describes in detail how AOPs are to be developed, reviewed, agreed and published at the OECD level.

The AOP-KB gives the scientific community the possibility to enter, share and discuss their AOP-related knowledge at one central point of information.

The AOP-KB allows for building AOPs by entering and then linking information about MIEs, KEs, AOs and Chemical Initiators.

The AOP-KB project is an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development initiative, which is executed as close collaboration between the Joint Research Centre of European Commission, the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the Engineer Research and Development Center of United States Army Corps of Engineers for the purpose of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's programme on the development of AOPs [3] The AOP has also been recently applied to better understand the effects of climate related stressors, further expanding the potential of AOPs to other scientific disciplines [6] More recent developments have focused on the analysis of AOP networks[9] and the quantification of KERs with a view to developing mathematical models of AOPs, sometimes referred to as quantitative AOPs.