VERA: A New Open-Access Software
Link to the full paperViganò, E.L.; Colombo, E.; Raitano, G.; Manganaro, A.; Sommovigo, A.; Dorne, J.L.C.; Benfenati, E.
Virtual Extensive Read-Across: A New Open-Access Software for Chemical Read-Across and Its Application to the Carcinogenicity Assessment of Botanicals.
Molecules 2022, 27, 6605.
Article
Virtual Extensive Read-Across: A New Open-Access Software for Chemical Read-Across and Its Application to the Carcinogenicity Assessment of Botanicals
The paper published in August 2022 describes a new open-access software: Virtual Extensive Read-Across (VERA). VERA provides a means to assess similarity between chemicals using structural alerts specific to carcinogenicity, pre-defined molecular groups and structural similarity. The software finds the most similar compounds with a certain feature, e.g., structural alerts and molecular groups, and provides clusters of similar substances while comparing these similar substances within different clusters. Carcinogenicity is a complex endpoint with several mechanisms, requiring resource intensive experimental bioassays and a large number of animals; as such, the use of read-across as part of new approach methodologies would support carcinogenicity assessment.
VERA is downloadable currently as a beta version, and an updated version will be implemented in VEGA soon, offering further features.
When the updated version is released, VERA will be included in the open-access tools demonstrated in our
NAMs training course.
