Abstract
Antarctic fishes contain large quantities of lipid in adipose tissue, blood and oxidative muscle. In this study, the fatty acyl compositions of free fatty acids (FFA) and triacylglycerol (TAG) in serum, adipose tissue and oxidative muscle were determined in two species of Antarctic fishes, Trematomus newnesi Boulenger, 1902, and Notothenia gibberifrons Lönnberg, 1905, collected off the Antarctic Peninsula in February and March 1987. Total lipid contents of serum and oxidative muscle in each species also were measured. T. newnesi, a mesopelagic species, has significantly more lipid in the serum than N. gibberifrons, a demersal species (17.6±2.4 and 10.4±1.0 mg lipid g-1 serum, respectively). The oxidative muscle of T. newnesi also contains more lipid than does that of N. gibberifrons (12.5 and 9.3% by dry weight, respectively). Fatty acids comprising greater than 5% of one or more of the lipid pools assayed in both species include 14:0, 16:0, 16:1, 16:2, 18:0, 18:1, 20:5 and 22:6. The percentages of 16:1 were lower (p<0.05) in oxidative muscle FFA than in all other assayed lipid pools in both species, suggesting a catabolic preference for some monoenes in oxidative muscle of these fishes. The percentage of 14:0 was two-to three-fold higher in adipose tissue TAG than in all other lipid pools in both species. Differences in fatty acid compositions between lipid pools indicate than proteins involved in the mobilization, transport or catabolism of fatty acids exhibit differential recognition of fatty acids in T. newnesi and N. gibberifrons.
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Communicated by J. Grassle, New Brunswick
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Lund, E.D., Sidell, B.D. Neutral lipid compositions of antarctic fish tissues may reflect use of fatty acyl substrates by catabolic systems. Marine Biology 112, 377–382 (1992). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00356282
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00356282