The integration of adverse outcome pathways and aggregate exposure pathways for food safety testing: pesticides as a case study

Publication date: 31-01-2026
Extent: 34 pages

Contributions by: Alexandra-Costina Avîrvarei, Ellen Callewaert, Kyriaki Xiftou, Mathieu Vinken and Julen Sanz-Serrano, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium

Chapter synopsis:

Chemical risk assessment is moving towards non-animal approaches that rely on the mechanistic understanding of toxicity. In this respect, the adverse outcome pathway (AOP) framework is a promising tool to capture chemical-agnostic mechanistic understanding of toxicological processes. AOPs link a molecular initiating event to a specific adverse outcome via a series of key events and key event relationships. Sharing common key features to the AOP framework, the aggregate exposure pathway (AEP) framework is a complementing tool to systematically collect chemical-specific exposure information from the source to the site of action via key exposure states and key transitional relationships. Integrating exposure and toxicological knowledge into combined AEP-AOP constructs can facilitate prediction of chemical-induced toxicity and enable risk-based decision making. The current chapter focuses on the structure, development, assessment, and applications of the AOP and AEP frameworks, illustrated by a case-study on the hepatotoxicity of the metabolites and environmental residues of pesticides.

DOI: 10.19103/AS.2025.172.19