1. Academic Validation
  2. A large-scale human toxicogenomics resource for drug-induced liver injury prediction

A large-scale human toxicogenomics resource for drug-induced liver injury prediction

  • Nat Commun. 2025 Nov 13;16(1):9860. doi: 10.1038/s41467-025-65690-3.
Volker Bergen 1 Konstantia Kodella 2 Sreenath Srikrishnan 2 Ornella Barrandon 2 Sara Anderson 2 Max Rogers-Grazado 2 Casey Fowler 2 Hirit Beyene 2 Nicole Robichaud 2 Timothy Fulton 2 Nina Lapchyk 2 Mauricio Cortes 2 Nick Plugis 2 Matthew Goddeeris 2 Mahdi Zamanighomi 3
Affiliations

Affiliations

  • 1 Cellarity Inc., Somerville, MA, USA. DILImap@cellarity.com.
  • 2 Cellarity Inc., Somerville, MA, USA.
  • 3 Cellarity Inc., Somerville, MA, USA. mzamanighomi@cellarity.com.
Abstract

Drug-Induced Liver Injury (DILI) remains one of the most critical challenges in drug development, causing patient safety concerns, clinical trial failures and drug withdrawals. We introduce ToxPredictor, a toxicogenomics framework combining RNA-seq data from primary human hepatocytes with pharmacokinetic data to predict dose-resolved DILI risks and safety margins. At its core is DILImap, an RNA-seq library tailored for DILI research, comprising 300 compounds at multiple concentrations. ToxPredictor achieves 88% sensitivity at 100% specificity in blind validation, outperforming state-of-the-art methods. It flagged recent phase III clinical failures, including Evobrutinib, TAK-875, and BMS-986142, overlooked by animal studies. Beyond prediction, ToxPredictor provides mechanistic insights into hepatotoxic pathways, enabling early de-risking and actionable safety decisions. Unlike single-endpoint readouts-even from 3D models-transcriptomics offers a multi-dimensional system-level view of hepatocyte responses, capable of detecting diverse DILI mechanisms not captured by conventional assays. Scalable, actionable, and integrated into a broader AI/ML drug discovery platform, this work establishes toxicogenomics as a promising tool for developing safer therapeutics and addressing one of the most pressing challenges in toxicology.

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