Thesis (Ph.D.) - Cairo University - Faculty of Pharmacy - Department of Pharmacognosy

Iris is the largest genus and with the greatest taxonomic diversity of family Iridaceae with about 301 species of herbaceous perennials. It is distributed in the northern temperate regions.Three Iris species (I. confusa Sealy, I. pseudacorus L. and I. germanica L.) cultivated in Egypt were selected for phytochemical and biological investigations. In this study, genetic (ISSR-PCR) profiling was conducted to determine the relationship between the three species and find genetic markers for differentiation between them. Highest similarity was observed between I. pseudacorus and I. germanica. I. confusa underground parts polar fraction (PF) exhibited the highest phenolic and flavonoid contents while I. pseudacorus underground parts non-polar fraction (NF) exhibited the highest triterpene content. Primary metabolites profiling (GC-MS) of the leaves resulted in the detection of 60 metabolites. Multivariate data analysis discriminated I. confusa from the other two species.Regarding the underground parts, 68 primary metabolites were detected and the multivariate data analysis discriminated the three studied species. Secondary metabolites profiling (UPLC-ESI-MS/MS) of the PF of the leaves and underground parts resulted in the identification of 91 compounds, while that of the NF identified 48 metabolites. Multivariate data analysis of the secondary metabolites was consistent with the primary metabolites profiling. The anti-bacterial activity against 4 pathogenic bacteria (Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus sphaericus, Escherichia coli and Enterobacter aerogenes) showed that I. pseudacorus leaves PF and NF exhibited the highest activity

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