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OECD Series on Adverse Outcome Pathways

An Adverse Outcome Pathway (AOP) describes a logical sequence of causally linked events at different levels of biological organisation, which follows exposure to a stressor and leads to an adverse health effect in humans or wildlife. AOPs are the central element of a toxicological knowledge framework, promoted by member countries through OECD, built to support chemical risk assessment based on mechanistic reasoning. These AOPs are available in the AOP-Wiki, an interactive and virtual encyclopaedia for AOP development. Following their development and review, the endorsed AOPs are published in the OECD Series on Adverse Outcome Pathways. As scientific knowledge progresses, the publication of an AOP in this series does not preclude regular updates or new contributions to a given AOP. While the AOP-Wiki is a dynamic tool, only impactful changes to the AOP will be reflected in subsequent updates of the published AOP.

English

Adverse Outcome Pathway on deposition of energy leading to lung cancer

The present Adverse Outcome Pathway (AOP) describes the linkage between lung cancer initiated from the Deposition of Energy (DoE) into a cell by a prototypic stressor such as radon gas. The multiple ionization events from DoE can directly break DNA double strands and initiate the activation of repair machinery through non-homologous end joining, an efficient, but error-prone process. When double strand breaks occur in DNA regions that transcribe critical genes, mutations generated by faulty repair may alter the function of these genes or cause chromosomal aberrations. These events alter the functions of many gene products and affect cell growth, cycling, and apoptosis. Cell proliferation is then promoted by escaping the regulatory control and forming hyperplasia in lung epithelial cells, leading eventually to lung cancer. Although the weight of evidence for this AOP is strong, uncertainties remain on dose-effect relationships across KEs, particularly for DoE delivered at low doses and dose-rates.

English

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