FAIR-ifying the Exposome Journal: Templates for Chemical Structures and Transformations

Abstract

The exposome, the totality of lifetime exposures, is a new and highly complex paradigm for health and disease. Tackling this challenge requires an effort well beyond single individuals or laboratories, where every piece of the puzzle will be vital. The launch of this new Exposome journal coincides with the evolution of the exposome through its teenage years and into a growing maturity in an increasingly open and FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, reusable) world. This letter discusses how both authors and the Exposome journal alike can help increase the FAIRness of the chemical structural information and the associated metadata in the journal, aiming to capture more details about the chemistry of exposomics. The proposed chemical structure template can serve as an interoperable supplementary format that is made accessible through the website and more findable by linking the DOI of this data file to the article DOI metadata, supporting further reuse. An additional Transformations template provides authors with a means to connect predecessor (parent, substrate) molecules to successor (transformation product, metabolite) molecules and thus provide FAIR connections between observed (i.e., experimental) chemical exposures and biological responses, to help improve the public knowledgebase on exposome-related transformations. These connections are vital to extend current biochemical knowledge and to fulfil the current Exposome definition of “the cumulative measure of environmental influences and associated biological responses throughout the lifespan including exposures from the environment, diet, behaviour, and endogenous processes”.