Fig. 1

ECTO unifies exposure attributes. Existing ontologies contain terms describing common exposure stimuli, exposure routes, and potential exposure media, however unifying terms to describe the exposure process were not yet represented. Utilizing the schema of the Exposure Ontology (ExO), ECTO classes can coordinate the stimulus, route, and exposure components into a single process term for consistent exposure classes. Logical axioms can be used to define the relationships between exposure receptors, ECTO classes, and documented exposure outcomes from the literature. Instance level schemas can also be developed using individual data points as the exposure receptor or exposure outcomes. Abbreviations: ENVO, The Environment Ontology; ChEBI, Chemical Entities of Biological Interest; NCBI Taxon, National Center for Biotechnology Information Taxonomy; FoodOn, Food Ontology; NCIt, National Cancer Institute Thesaurus; MAxO, Medical Actions Ontology; HPO, Human Phenotype Ontology; Mondo, Mondo Disease Ontology; GO, Gene Ontology