毒理学发展的新方向——系统毒理学

Systems Toxicology:a New Orientation of Toxicological Research

伴随着系统生物学和高通量分子检测技术的发展,系统毒理学渐显端倪。系统毒理学是指通过整合分子、细胞、组织等不同研究层次的高通量信息,系统研究外源性化学物和环境应激等与机体的相互作用的一门学科。该文综述了系统毒理学的诞生背景、研究策略、研究技术及其主要应用,如研究毒物作用分子机制等。尽管还有不足之处,系统毒理学的发展和应用有望对人类的环境与健康研究,如阐明污染物的健康损害机制等,产生推动作用。

With the development of systems biology and high-throughput molecular technologies, systems toxicology has come into being. The up-date understanding of systems toxicology is the study of the perturbation of biological systems by using chemicals and stressors, monitoring changes in molecular expression （transcript, protein and metabelite prefiling）, conventional toxicological parameters and iteratively integrating response data to describe the functioning organism. The background, research framework, supporting tools and the main applications of systems toxicology were discussed in detail in the present paper. Although in its infancy, systems toxicology will play an important role in advancing the study of environmental stress and heath impact definitely.