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  <front>
    <journal-meta>
      <journal-id journal-id-type="iso-abbrev">Pharmacophore</journal-id>
      <journal-id journal-id-type="publisher-id">pharmacophorejournal.com</journal-id>
      <journal-id journal-id-type="publisher-id">Pharmacophore</journal-id>
      <journal-title-group>
        <journal-title>Pharmacophore</journal-title>
      </journal-title-group>
      <issn pub-type="epub">2229-5402</issn>
    </journal-meta>
    <article-meta>
      <article-id pub-id-type="publisher-id">pharmacophorejournal.com-6895</article-id>
      <article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.51847/rmfJrSUlIT</article-id>
      <article-categories>
        <subj-group subj-group-type="heading">
          <subject>Original research</subject>
        </subj-group>
      </article-categories>
      <title-group>
        <article-title>Explainable Deep Kernel Models for Liver Injury Prediction Using Mitochondrial and Transporter Toxicity Data</article-title>
      </title-group>
                    <contrib-group>
                      <contrib contrib-type="author">
              <name>
                <surname>Popescu</surname>
                <given-names>Andrei</given-names>
              </name>
                              <xref rid="aff1" ref-type="aff">1</xref>
                                                            <xref rid="cor1" ref-type="corresp" />
                          </contrib>
                      <contrib contrib-type="author">
              <name>
                <surname>Ionescu</surname>
                <given-names>Mihai</given-names>
              </name>
                              <xref rid="aff1" ref-type="aff">1</xref>
                                        </contrib>
                      <contrib contrib-type="author">
              <name>
                <surname>Stan</surname>
                <given-names>Elena</given-names>
              </name>
                              <xref rid="aff2" ref-type="aff">2</xref>
                                        </contrib>
                      <contrib contrib-type="author">
              <name>
                <surname>Dumitrescu</surname>
                <given-names>Sorin</given-names>
              </name>
                              <xref rid="aff1" ref-type="aff">1</xref>
                                        </contrib>
                      <contrib contrib-type="author">
              <name>
                <surname>Pavel</surname>
                <given-names>Irina</given-names>
              </name>
                              <xref rid="aff2" ref-type="aff">2</xref>
                                        </contrib>
                  </contrib-group>
                  <aff id="aff1">
            <label>1</label>Department of AI-Based Pharmaceutical Sciences, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania.
          </aff>
                  <aff id="aff2">
            <label>2</label>Department of Computational Drug Analytics, Faculty of Engineering, Politehnica University of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania.
          </aff>
                          <author-notes>
            <corresp id="cor1">
              <bold>Address for correspondence:</bold> Prof. Wael Abu Dayyih, Department of
              Pharmaceutical Chemistry, Faculty of Pharmacy, Mutah University, Al-Karak 61710, Jordan.
                              E-mail: <email xlink:href="andrei.popescu@gmail.com">andrei.popescu@gmail.com</email>
                          </corresp>
          </author-notes>
                    <pub-date pub-type="epub">
        <day>28</day>
        <month>04</month>
        <year>2026</year>
      </pub-date>
      <volume>17</volume>
      <issue>2</issue>
      <fpage>93</fpage>
      <lpage>102</lpage>
      <permissions>
        <copyright-statement>
          Copyright: &#x000a9; 2026 Pharmacophore
        </copyright-statement>
        <copyright-year>2026</copyright-year>
        <license>
          <ali:license_ref xmlns:ali="http://www.niso.org/schemas/ali/1.0/"
            specific-use="textmining" content-type="ccbyncsalicense">
            https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/</ali:license_ref>
          <license-p>This is an open access journal, and articles are distributed under the terms of
            the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 License, which allows
            others to remix, tweak, and build upon the work non-commercially, as long as appropriate
            credit is given and the new creations are licensed under the identical terms.</license-p>
        </license>
      </permissions>
      <abstract>
        <title>A<sc>BSTRACT</sc></title>
        <p>Drug-induced liver injury (DILI) remains a significant safety concern in drug discovery and clinical development, often arising from mitochondrial dysfunction, impaired hepatobiliary transport, reactive metabolite formation, or combinations of these biological stressors. Many computational models for predicting liver injury rely primarily on chemical structure or clinical labels, providing limited insight into the underlying biological mechanisms. While neural networks can capture complex patterns, they often lack mechanistic transparency for safety pharmacologists. To address this gap, we propose an explainable deep kernel modeling framework that integrates mitochondrial toxicity endpoints, transporter inhibition profiles, and molecular structure features to generate interpretable, feature-attributed predictions. In this approach, a deep kernel learning model embeds a neural representation within a Gaussian process, linking mechanistic assay features to DILI risk labels, and explanation methods such as SHAP or integrated gradients are applied to decompose each prediction into contributions from specific assays, transporter signals, and structural features. Conceptually, the model would flag a drug candidate as higher risk when transporter inhibition and mitochondrial impairment jointly indicate hepatotoxicity, while the explanation layer identifies whether the risk is driven primarily by BSEP inhibition, reduced mitochondrial respiration, ATP depletion, or structural alerts. By connecting predicted liver injury risk to interpretable biological drivers, this explainable deep kernel framework can support transparent, mechanism-informed safety assessment and help medicinal chemists and safety scientists prioritize de-risking strategies earlier in development.</p>
      </abstract>
      <kwd-group>
                <kwd>Explainable artificial intelligence</kwd>
                <kwd>Deep kernel learning</kwd>
                <kwd>Drug-induced liver injury</kwd>
                <kwd>Mitochondrial toxicity</kwd>
                <kwd>BSEP inhibition</kwd>
                <kwd>Transporter toxicity</kwd>
              </kwd-group>
    </article-meta>
  </front>
</article>