Soil structure influences proteins, phenols, and flavonoids of varied medicinal plants in Al Jubail, KSA

In Al Jubail, Saudi Arabia, 29 medicinal plants have been collected from 15 diverse sites. The goal of this study was to determine how soil texture affected the protein, phenol, and flavonoid contents, and their relationship with the degree of genetic similarity. Most soil samples were loamy sand, except for sites 6 and 10, which were sandy loams. A total of 13 protein bands were shown where four were polymorphic and nine were monomorphic, with hereditary similarities ranging from 1 to 0.86. The results indicated that the protein content ranged from (9.32 lg/gm) in Anabasis setifera to (0.92 lg/gm) in Juncus rigidus. The highest phenol content was found in Halopeplis perfoliata (21.45 mg/gm), whereas the lowest was found in Zygophyllum qatarense 7 (2.133 mg/gm). Salsola imbricate 2 showed the highest flavonoid content (74.97 mg/gm), whereas Juncus rigidus had the lowest (1.43 mg/gm). The concentration varied based on the accession and species. In comparison to the other soils tested, the soil at site 7 had the highest concentrations of calcium (132.5 mEq/L), magnesium (47.5 mEq/L), sodium (52.83 mEq/L), potassium (26.96 mEq/L), chloride (63.00 mEq/L), and electric conductivity (25.9 ds/m). The surveyed accessions were classified into two groups using cluster analysis, principal component analysis, and multivariate heatmap. These findings imply that variations in active compounds that are important for plant tolerance to wild habitats are associated with different soil structures, allowing plants to be used in the pharmaceutical and biomedical industries, as well as selective breeding of accessions with high antioxidant properties. (c) 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of King Saud University. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Automated summary

This study collected 29 medicinal plants from Saudi Arabia and found that soil texture affects the protein, phenol, and flavonoid contents, as well as their genetic similarity. The variations in active compounds due to different soil structures have implications for the utilization of medicinal plants.