FastBMD: an online tool for rapid benchmark dose–response analysis of transcriptomics data
Jessica Ewald, Othman Soufan, Jianguo Xia, Niladri Basu
Abstract
MOTIVATION: Transcriptomics dose-response analysis is a promising new approach method for toxicity testing. While international regulatory agencies have spent substantial effort establishing a standardized statistical approach, existing software that follows this approach is computationally inefficient and must be locally installed. RESULTS: FastBMD is a web-based tool that implements standardized methods for transcriptomics benchmark dose-response analysis in R. It is >60 times faster than the current leading software, supports transcriptomics data from 13 species, and offers a comprehensive analytical pipeline that goes from processing and normalization of raw gene expression values to interactive exploration of pathway-level benchmark dose results. AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION: FastBMD is freely available at www.fastbmd.ca. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.