CAMDA 2014: Learning from differential expression in the Japanese Toxicogenomic Project

Our aim was to predict drug-induced liver injury potential from differential expression profiles in the Japanese Toxicogenomic Project's data. Additionally, we wondered which drug concentrations and treatment periods proved most informative for classification. The study confirmed that the effect of drugs on differential gene expression is dose and time-dependent suggesting that less information is contained in responses to low doses and short treatment periods. Cross-validation performance of predictions was low due to high false positive rate. Present results indicate that distinguishing between differential expression responses to nontoxic and toxic agents is non-trivial. The value of the Japanese Toxicogenomic Project's data for classification purposes would be increased if gene expression responses to additional nontoxic drugs were available.