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. 2015 Jul 27;20(8):13620-41.
doi: 10.3390/molecules200813620.

Metabolic Analysis of Various Date Palm Fruit (Phoenix dactylifera L.) Cultivars from Saudi Arabia to Assess Their Nutritional Quality

Ismail Hamad  1   2 , Hamada AbdElgawad  3   4 , Soad Al Jaouni  5 , Gaurav Zinta  6 , Han Asard  7 , Sherif Hassan  8   4 , Momtaz Hegab  4 , Nashwa Hagagy  9 , Samy Selim  10   11
Affiliations

Metabolic Analysis of Various Date Palm Fruit (Phoenix dactylifera L.) Cultivars from Saudi Arabia to Assess Their Nutritional Quality

Ismail Hamad et al. Molecules. .

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.

Keywords: amino acids; antimicrobial; antioxidants; date palm; lipid peroxidation; metabolomics; minerals; organic acids; phenolics.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Antioxidant metabolites content: (a) Total glutathione (GSH); (b) total ascorbate (ASC); (c) total tocopherols of 12 Saudi date cultivars.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Principal component analysis (PCA) of metabolites in 12 Saudi date cultivars. Bi-plot of principle component 1 (42.7%) and principle component 2 (23.5%).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Heat maps of the metabolite profiles of 12 Saudi date cultivars. A total of 42 metabolites were quantified by high performance liquid chromatography for each cultivar, including amino acids, organic acids, sugars, phenolic compounds, glutathione and vitamins.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Antioxidant activity: DPPH scavenging activity and anti-lipid peroxidation activity of 12 Saudi date cultivars. (a) DPPH (1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl) free radical scavenging activity; (b) anti-lipid peroxidation.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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