Abstract
In this study, genetic variability, antimicrobial activity and water-soluble vitamins content were investigated among Acacia ehrenbergiana,Acacia seyal, Acacia etbaica,Acacia tortilis and Acacia asak. Random Amplified Polymorphic DNA (RAPD), Inter Simple Sequence Repeats (ISSR) and mixed primers were used to evaluate the genetic variability among Acacia spp. 58 bands resulted from RAPD primers of which 51 unique bands, 7 polymorphic bands and no monomorphic bands with similarity values between 18.37% to 63.38%. ISSR primers showed 75 scorable bands of which 42 unique bands, 31 polymorphic bands and 2 monomorphic bands with similarity values ISSR (25% to 47.06%). Mixed primers showed 71 bands of which 41 unique bands, 29 polymorphic bands and one monomorphic band with similarity values ranged between 29.09% to 46.39%. RAPD and mixed primers separated Acacia ehrenbergiana from other investigated species while ISSR primers separated both Acacia etbaica and Acacia tortilis from other species Antimicrobial activities were screened against six human pathogenic microorganisms (HPM) and four plant pathogenic fungi (PPF) by using agar well diffusion method. Except extract of dry bark of Acacia tortilis and fresh leaves of Acacia asak all others had significant antimicrobial activities against HPM and all extracts against PPF showed weak activities. High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) was used to estimate the vitamin B1, folic acid, B12 and B2 content among Acacia spp. The highest content of vitamin B1 and folic acid found in Acacia seyal fresh leaves, B12 in Acacia etbaica fresh leaves while B2 in Acacia asak dry bark. In conclusion, RAPD, ISSR and mixed primers showed ability to distinguish variability among Acacia spp., and those plants posses' natural antimicrobials agent and natural vitamins that could be used as an alternative to the synthetic drugs.