title: Metabolic Analysis of Various Date Palm Fruit (Phoenix dactylifera L.) Cultivars from Saudi Arabia to Assess Their Nutritional Quality.
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.
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Laboratory Sciences, College of Applied Medical Sciences, Aljouf University, Sakaka 2014, Saudi Arabia. ismailhamad@yahoo.com.|Biochemistry Department, Bahri University, Khartoum 1660, Sudan. ismailhamad@yahoo.com.
authors.forename: Ismail
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Hamad
authors.affiliation: Laboratory for Molecular Plant Physiology and Biotechnology, Department of Biology, University of Antwerp, Groenenborgerlaan 171, B-2020, Antwerp 2020, Belgium. momtazyehya@hotmail.com.|Department of Botany, Faculty of Science, University of Beni-Suef, Beni-Suef 62511, Egypt. momtazyehya@hotmail.com.
authors.forename: Hamada
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: AbdElgawad
authors.affiliation: YAJ Prophatic Medicine Application, College of Medicine, King Abdulaziz University, P.O. Box 80215, Jeddah 21589, Saudi Arabia. saljaouni@kau.edu.sa.
authors.forename: Soad
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Al Jaouni
authors.affiliation: Laboratory for Molecular Plant Physiology and Biotechnology, Department of Biology, University of Antwerp, Groenenborgerlaan 171, B-2020, Antwerp 2020, Belgium. gaurav.zinta@uantwerpen.be.
authors.forename: Gaurav
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Zinta
authors.affiliation: Laboratory for Molecular Plant Physiology and Biotechnology, Department of Biology, University of Antwerp, Groenenborgerlaan 171, B-2020, Antwerp 2020, Belgium. hamada.abdelgawad@uantwerpen.be.
authors.forename: Han
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Asard
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Laboratory Sciences, College of Applied Medical Sciences, Aljouf University, Sakaka 2014, Saudi Arabia. momtazyehya@hotmail.com.|Department of Botany, Faculty of Science, University of Beni-Suef, Beni-Suef 62511, Egypt. momtazyehya@hotmail.com.
authors.forename: Sherif
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Hassan
authors.affiliation: Department of Botany, Faculty of Science, University of Beni-Suef, Beni-Suef 62511, Egypt. momtazyehya@hotmail.com.
authors.forename: Momtaz
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hegab
authors.affiliation: Microbiology and Botany Department, Faculty of Science, Suez Canal University, Ismailia 41522, Egypt. nashwa_hagag@hotmail.com.
authors.forename: Nashwa
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Hagagy
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Laboratory Sciences, College of Applied Medical Sciences, Aljouf University, Sakaka 2014, Saudi Arabia. sabdulsalam@ju.edu.sa.|Microbiology and Botany Department, Faculty of Science, Suez Canal University, Ismailia 41522, Egypt. sabdulsalam@ju.edu.sa.
authors.forename: Samy
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Selim
mesh_terms: D005504:Food Analysis; D005638:Fruit / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism; D009753:Nutritive Value; D065749:Phoeniceae / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism; D012529:Saudi Arabia
keywords: amino acids; antimicrobial; antioxidants; date palm; lipid peroxidation; metabolomics; minerals; organic acids; phenolics