Deliverable 3.10 Final report summarising the detailed interactions and main recommendations for eBASIS exploitation
Creators: name: Kiely, Mairead
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2011
Subjects: The EuroFIR Food Platform
EuroFIR
Nexus

description: Overview of the eBASIS and ePlantLIBRA databases

Plant-derived bioactive compounds (or ‘phytochemicals’), such as polyphenols, carotenoids, plant sterols and glucosinolates, are known to exhibit powerful cellular and molecular effects which are potentially beneficial to health. Composition data on the levels of these compounds in commonly consumed and exotic food plants, as well as information from scientific studies to confirm or refute evidence of a beneficial (or adverse) effect of phytochemicals have direct relevance to public health promotion and disease prevention. These data are consequently of great interest to the food industry, as the identification and incorporation of food-derived constituents with proven beneficial health effects (also known as nutraceuticals) has largely driven the function food concept.

The EuroFIR Network of Excellence established eBASIS (BioActive Substances in Foods Information System) as an online database (available at http://ebasis.eurofir.org) to uniquely combine food composition and biological effects data for plant-based bioactive compounds. eBASIS is a compilation of critically evaluated data extracted from peer-reviewed literature, and contains an up-to-date list of the 550 or so major food plants consumed in Europe. The database includes data on approximately 200 plant-based bioactive compounds, covering major compound classes. Information is also included on processed plant-based foods, such as soy products, wine, beer, tomato sauces, bread and chocolate. All plants and processed foods are described using LanguaL; accompanying data includes the plant’s scientific name, synonyms, common name in 15 European languages, color photograph and links to the Germplasm (Gry et al. 2007).

The food composition and biological effects data included in eBASIS have been extracted from the peer-reviewed literature by a panel of expert evaluators, using quality assured processes to identify and evaluate the data. Searches for composition data are conducted in CabWeb, ISI Web of Knowledge and CAS SciFinder and biological effects data are extracted from PubMed and from the ISI Web of Knowledge. Expert evaluators are responsible for extracting the data and submitting them to the database via a standardised online input form. Relevant information from the study is entered (e.g. plant and compound information, experimental design and results). In addition, evaluators assess the quality of each study on the basis of the study design, description of subjects, characterisation of test materials, methodology, statistical approaches and results.

ePlantLIBRA was orgininally developed by EuroFIR as a sister database to eBASIS. Both databases are unique on-line resources containing information on plant-based bioactive compounds. The databases are identical in their look and feel, but differ on two points:





eBASIS contains bioactive compound data on plants (or processed plant foods), while ePlantLIBRA contains bioactive compound data plant food supplements




In terms of biological effects, eBASIS focused primarily on beneficial health effects, while ePlantLIBRA includes information on both beneficial and adverse effects

The databases contains a sophisticated data retrieval system, allowing user-driven searching and retrieval by plant, compound, compound class, study type, biomarker and quality, or a combination of these. Reports are easily exportable to Excel for subsequent manipulation by the user.

Essentially, the aim is for both databases to continue to develop as part of a meta-database, together with contaminants and residue information from the MoniQA database, as depicted in Figure 1.