Next-generation sequencing data for use in risk assessment

Next-generation sequencing (NGS) represents several powerful platforms that have revolutionized RNA and DNA analysis. The parallel sequencing of millions of DNA molecules can provide mechanistic insights into toxicology and provide new avenues for biomarker discovery with growing relevance for risk assessment. The evolution of NGS technologies has improved over the last decade with increased sensitivity and accuracy to foster new biomarker assays from tissue, blood, and other biofluids. NGS technologies can identify transcriptional changes and genomic targets with base pair precision in response to chemical exposure. Furthermore, there are several exciting movements within the toxicology community that incorporate NGS platforms into new strategies for more rapid toxicological characterizations. These include the Tox21 in vitro high-throughput transcriptomic screening program, development of organotypic spheroids, alternative animal models, mining archival tissues, liquid biopsy, and epigenomics. This review will describe NGS-based technologies, demonstrate how they can be used as tools for target discovery in tissue and blood, and suggest how they might be applied for risk assessment.