Abstract

Bioactive compounds from plants have received a great deal of interest from scientists all over the globe for
development of drugs. This study was aimed at evaluating phytochemicals, High Performance Liquid
Chromatography (HPLC) and antibacterial activities of ethanolic root extract of Phoenix dactylifera L. (date
plant) against some clinical isolates. Roots of date plant were dried and extracted with ethanol using the cold
maceration method before concentrating it with water bath at 45 oC. The phytochemicals were identified using
HPLC based on their individual retention time. Antibacterial activities of the methanolic root extract were
assessed against some clinical isolates including Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Streptococcus
pyogenes, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa utilizing agar disc diffusion method. The percentage yield of ethanol
extract was 0.3892%. The result of the phytochemical screening revealed the presence of carbohydrate,
phenols, tannins, saponins, flavonoids, cardiac glycosides, steroids, alkaloids and terpenes at various retention
time of 2.853, 3.235, 4.129, 4.713, 6.722, 8.954, 11.228 and 22.912 min. Compounds identified include
phenolic acid (caffeic acid) and two flavonoids (rutin and quercetin). The zone of inhibition diameter ranged
from 15 to 19 mm. The maximum zone of inhibition was detected against Streptococcus pyogenes, (19 mm).
Staphylococcus aureus and Klebsiella pneumoniae were inhibited with 17 mm and 16 mm zone of inhibition
respectively, followed by Pseudomonas aeruginosa which had the least zone of inhibition (15 mm). The result
of the present study suggests that the root of Phoenix dactylifera L. possesses important phytochemical
components with antibacterial activity that could be possibly exploited for pharmaceutical development.

Key words: Phytochemicals, Antibacterial activities, ethanolic root extract, Clinical isolates, Phoenix dactylifera L.