Abstract
Date palm is an important crop, especially in the hot-arid regions of the world. Date palm fruits have high nutritional and therapeutic value and possess significant antibacterial and antifungal properties. In this study, we performed bioactivity analyses and metabolic profiling of date fruits of 12 cultivars from Saudi Arabia to assess their nutritional value. Our results showed that the date extracts from different cultivars have different free radical scavenging and anti-lipid peroxidation activities. Moreover, the cultivars showed significant differences in their chemical composition, e.g., the phenolic content (10.4–22.1 mg/100 g DW), amino acids (37–108 μmol·g−1 FW) and minerals (237–969 mg/100 g DW). Principal component analysis (PCA) showed a clear separation of the cultivars into four different groups. The first group consisted of the Sokary, Nabtit Ali cultivars, the second group of Khlas Al Kharj, Khla Al Qassim, Mabroom, Khlas Al Ahsa, the third group of Khals Elshiokh, Nabot Saif, Khodry, and the fourth group consisted of Ajwa Al Madinah, Saffawy, Rashodia, cultivars. Hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) revealed clustering of date cultivars into two groups. The first cluster consisted of the Sokary, Rashodia and Nabtit Ali cultivars, and the second cluster contained all the other tested cultivars. These results indicate that date fruits have high nutritive value, and different cultivars have different chemical composition.
Highlights
Date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.) is the most successful and commercially important crop in the hot-arid regions of the world, e.g., Saudi Arabia, Emirates and Egypt [1,2]
Glutathione (GSH) and ascorbic acid (ASC) are aqueous phase antioxidants, while tocopherol is lipophilic in nature
All the measured metabolites were subjected to principal component analysis (PCA) and hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) to identify differences in metabolite profiles among cultivars; Principal Component Analysis (PCA) is widely used to assess the differences between plant varieties/cultivars at the metabolic level
Summary
Date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.) is the most successful and commercially important crop in the hot-arid regions of the world, e.g., Saudi Arabia, Emirates and Egypt [1,2]. In these countries, date palm products are commonly used for human and animal consumption, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, carpentry, and firewood. Date fruits have a great importance from both a nutritional and therapeutic point of view [3,4]. They are rich sources of sugars, vitamins, minerals and fibers. Al-Farsi et al [9] found that total phenolic content ranged from 172 to 246 mg of gallic acid/100 g in three date varieties grown in Oman
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