Expectations from omics data when testing xenobiotics

Manjeet Kumar¹, Gaurav Diwan¹, Juan Carlos Gonzalez Sanchez¹, Tomasz Ignasiak², Benedetta Leoni², Gordana Apic², Robert B Russell¹

1. BioQuant and Heidelberg University Biochemistry Center, Heidelberg University, Im Neuenheimer Feld 267, 69120 Heidelberg Germany

2. Cell Networks, Lutherstrasse, Heidelberg, Germany

There are several issues related to inferring xenobiotic mechanisms from omics data such as RNAseq or Metabolomics. Among these are obvious issues related to data heterogeneity, technology platform sensitivity and specificity, and cross-organism comparisons. While these issues can often be dealt with or at least understood, a more fundamental issue is what might be expected from xenobiotic response given the fact that what is typically observed in these experiments is usually downstream of any primary event. We have developed a strategy for inferring the downstream events for known xenobiotics by a detailed interrogation of the literature and other data sources, together with the means to infer possible points of xenobiotic interactions. This allows one to work backwards from the downstream consequences to possible primary xenobiotic binding events.  We discuss several examples with well-established xenobiotics and a more general strategy for predicting the possible primary binding or key events based on available omics data.