The impact of exposure to multiple chemicals raises concerns for human and environmental health. The adverse outcome pathway method offers a framework to support mechanism-based assessment in environmental health starting by describing which mechanisms are triggered upon interaction with different stressors. The identification of the molecular initiating event and the molecular interaction between a chemical and a protein target is still a challenge for the development of adverse outcome pathways. The cellular response to chemical exposure studied with omics could not directly identify the protein targets. However, recent mass spectrometry-based methods are offering a proteome-wide identification of protein targets interacting with s but unrevealing a molecular initiating event from a set of targets is still dependent on available knowledge. Here, we directly coupled the target identification findings from the proteome integral solubility alteration assay with an analytical hierarchy process for the prediction of a prioritized molecular initiating event. We demonstrate the applicability of this combination of methodologies with a test compound (TCDD), and it could be further studied and integrated into AOPs. From the eight protein targets identified by the proteome integral solubility alteration assay after analyzing 2824 human hepatic proteins, the analytical hierarchy process can select the most suitable protein for an AOP. Our combined method solves the missing links between high-throughput target identification and prediction of the molecular initiating event. We anticipate its utility to decipher new molecular initiating events and support more sustainable methodologies to gain time and resources in chemical assessment.
Keywords: TCDD; adverse outcome pathway; analytic hierarchy process; chemical target; molecular initiating event; multi-criteria decision-making analysis; predictive toxicology; proteome integral solubility alteration assay; thermal proteome profiling.