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Protein, Essential Amino Acid, and Fatty Acid Composition of Five Target Fishery Species of Central Mediterranean Sea
by
, , , , ,
Anna Traina
1
,
Enza Maria Quinci
2,*,
Nadia Sabatino
1,
Marianna Del Core
2,
Antonio Bellante
2,
Gioacchino Bono
3,4,
Marta Giuga
5,
Giuseppe Avellone
4,
Mario Sprovieri
6 and
Fabio D’Agostino
2 1
National Research Council of Italy, Institute of Anthropic Impacts and Sustainability in Marine Environment (CNR-IAS), 90149 Palermo, Italy
2
National Research Council of Italy, Institute of Anthropic Impacts and Sustainability in Marine Environment (CNR-IAS), Torretta Granitola-Campobello di Mazara, 91021 Trapani, Italy
3
National Research Council of Italy, Institute for Biological Resources and Marine Biotechnology (CNR-IRBIM), Mazara Del Vallo, 91026 Trapani, Italy
4
Department of Biological, Chemical and Pharmaceutical Sciences and Technologies (STEBICEF), University of Palermo, Via Archirafi 32, 90123 Palermo, Italy
5
National Research Council of Italy, Institute of Anthropic Impacts and Sustainability in Marine Environment (CNR-IAS), 16149 Genova, Italy
6
National Research Council of Italy, Institute of Marine Science (CNR-ISMAR), 30122 Venezia, Italy
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Animals 2024, 14(15), 2158; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani14152158
Submission received: 6 June 2024
/
Revised: 18 July 2024
/
Accepted: 23 July 2024
/
Published: 24 July 2024
(This article belongs to the Section Animal Products)
Simple Summary
Fishery products are an important part of the Mediterranean diet and constitute a high source of nutrients for consumers, contributing to the prevention of several health diseases. This work analysed the protein, amino acids, and fatty acids of Mediterranean target species (four fish species and one crustacean species) which are mostly consumed in Sicily. The nutritional composition of the selected species together with the evaluation of nutrient indices showed the high quality of the sampled fish. The excellent profile of the fatty acid of “blue fish” species highlights the opportunity for local people to benefit from a highly nutritional product originating from local and sustainable fisheries and with an affordable commercial value.
Abstract
The protein, essential amino acid, and fatty acid composition of European pilchard (Sardina pilchardus), European hake (Merluccius merluccius), surmullet (Mullus surmuletus), red mullet (Mullus barbatus), and deep water rose shrimp (Parapenaeus longirostris) from the central Mediterranean Sea were investigated. All the species showed an essential amino acid content of about 50% of total amino acids, while the protein and total fatty acids content varied from 19.9 to 24.8% and from 1.4 to 5.1%, respectively. The fatty acid profile mainly followed the order SFA (39.1–52.6%) > PUFA (21.0–39.3%) > MUFA (15.6–24.3%). Palmitic and stearic acids were predominant among saturated fatty acids (38–52% and 21–25%, respectively), while palmitoleic and oleic acids were the most represented of the total monounsaturated acids (10–21% and 55–68%, respectively). All the species, as expected, showed a more significant proportion of n-3 PUFA (EPA + DHA) of about 81–93% of the total PUFA, with the highest values was found in European pilchard. Also, several fat quality index values, such as n-6/n-3 ratio, PUFA/SFA, the index of atherogenicity (IA), the index of thrombogenicity (IT), the hypocholesterolemic/hypercholesterolemic ratio (HH), and fish lipid quality/flesh lipid quality (FLQ) were calculated to assess the nutritional quality. All the obtained results, along with the fat quality indexes, indicated the excellent nutritional values of the selected species.
Keywords:
seafood quality; EPA; DHA; nutritional indexes; southern Italy; NMDS model
