The increasing interest in plant phenolics and flavonoids outlined the necessity of determining their contents and biological activity in Mauritanian date palm fruits. Methanolic extracts of fruit of six date palm cultivars commonly grown in Mauritania were screened for their antioxidant activity, total phenolics, and flavonoid content at two edible ripening stages. Polyphenols and flavonoids were higher in theBlah stage, corresponding toKhalal in the standard Iraqi Arabic nomenclature, compared to the fully matureTamr stage regardless the cultivar. The average of total phenolics atBlah andTamr stages were 728.5 and 558.9 mg gallic acid equivalents (GAE) per 100 g dry matter (DM), whereas the average flavonoid content was 119.6 and 67.3 mg quercetin equivalents (QE) per 100 g DM, respectively. TheBlah stage also exhibited the highest total antioxidant activity with a Trolox equivalents antioxidant capacity (TEAC) value of 129.3 μmol/100 g DM founded in Bou seker's Blah date, followed by Tijib cultivar with TEAC value of 114.3 μmol/100 g DM and an average TEAC value of 107.5 μmol/100 g DM. Furthermore, a high positive correlation was found between total phenolics inTamr (r = 0.92) andBlah (r = 0.87) stages and TEAC of fruit methanolic extracts compared to the flavonoids, suggesting that phenolics were the major contributor to the antioxidant activity.
Keywords: Antioxidant activity; Mauritania; Phoenix dactylifera; date palm fruit; flavonoids; phenolics; ripening.