Indian Journal of Animal Research

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Nutritional Components and Quality Evaluation of Coilia nasus Muscle from Offshore of the Yangtze Estuary

C. Song1,2, Y.G. Li1, F. Zhao1,2, R.H. Liu1, G.P. Feng1,2, T.T. Zhang1,2, P. Zhuang1,2
1East China Sea Fisheries Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences, Shanghai 200090, China.
2Key Laboratory of Fisheries Ecology of the Yangtze Estuary, Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences, Shanghai 200090, China.

ABSTRACT

Background: Coilia nasus was one of the important economic fish in the Yangtze Estuary. The meat of C. nasus is tender and delicious, which is deeply loved by people. With the ban on fishing in the Yangtze River, a large number of “C. nasus from the sea” have appeared in the market. At present, the nutritional status and its true source are not clear. Therefore, the nutritional composition and quality of offshore C. nasus were analyzed to identify its source and evaluate its development and utilization potential according to its nutritional quality in the future.

Methods: The muscle nutritional components and quality of offshore C. nasus were analyzed according to the methods of national standards of China. 

Result: The content of essential amino acids (EAA) in dry sample was 57.06%±7.39%. The first limited amino acid was tryptophan (Trp), the essential amino acids index (EAAI) was 83.05 and the F-value was 2.37. The total content of eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) in fatty acids were 10.67%±0.46%, the ratio of DHA/EPA was 1.74%±0.05%. This investigation indicates that the muscle of C. nasus from offshore of the Yangtze Estuary contained rich amino acid such as glutamate (Glu) and lysine (Lys) and sufficient polyunsaturated fatty acids such as DHA and EPA.

INTRODUCTION

Coilia nasus, as a kind of migratory fish, usually live in the sea and migrate from the sea to the river for reproduction during the breeding season from March to June (Zhuang et al., 2018). C. nasus was one of the important economic fish in the Yangtze Estuary. However, with the impact of water conservancy projects’ construction along the river, environmental pollution and overfishing, C. nasus resources in the Yangtze River are on the verge of extinction. Therefore, in recent years, a large number of studies have been carried out on the protection and management of C. nasus resources (Ma et al., 2020; Xue et al., 2020), migratory habits (Wang et al., 2020; Xu et al., 2020) and genetic diversity (Jo et al., 2021; Xuan et al., 2021). But, there are relatively few studies on the offshore C. nasus outside the No fishing line (Fig 1). The meat of C. nasus is tender and juicy and tastes delicious, which is deeply loved by people. Especially near the Qingming Festival, C. nasus from the Yangtze River is regarded as an important delicacy. It is generally believed that C. nasus has the highest nutritional value and the freshest taste in this period.
 

Fig 1: Map of the offshore C. nasus.


       
For a long time, the research on C. nasus nutrition has mainly focused on the individuals from the Yangtze River (Wen et al., 2008; Liu et al., 2009; Xu et al., 2009a; Tang et al., 2011; Teng et al., 2016) and there are also some studies on the nutritional status of C. mystus in the Yangtze Estuary (Song et al., 2020a, c), while there is a lack of research on the nutritional status of offshore C. nasus. With the prohibition of fishing in the Yangtze River, a large number of “C. nasus from the sea” have gradually appeared in the market near the Qingming Festival. At present, the nutritional status and its real source are not clear. Therefore, this study analyzes the nutritional composition and quality of offshore C. nasus from outside the No fishing line, in order to provide a basic reference for the discrimination of C. nasus from different sources in market supervision and serve as a theoretical basis for rational development and utilization for the management of the offshore C. nasus outside the No fishing line in the future.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Sample collection and pretreatment
 
The offshore C. nasus was collected from Shengsi (SS) of Zhejiang Province in April 2020. The location is outside the No fishing line of the Yangtze River (Fig 1). Thirty individuals of C. nasus were randomly sampled and divided into 6 groups. A total of 200 g fresh muscle samples were taken from the back of 5 individuals in each group to form one sample. The six parallel samples were dried at 60oC, ground and mixed evenly. The six treated samples were divided into two subgroups, one of which was determined for amino acid and fatty acid, the other was dried to the constant weight at 105oC for determination of proximate composition of protein, fat and ash.
 
Determination of nutritional composition
 
The nutritional composition was determined according to the national standard methods in East China Sea Fisheries Research Institute. The contents of moisture, ash, protein and fat in the muscle of the offshore C. nasus were determined according to GB 5009.3-2016. The contents of amino acids were estimated according to GB 5009.124-2016 using Biochrom-20 amino acid analyzer. The contents of fatty acids were determined according to GB 5009.168-2016 using Agilent-6890 capillary gas chromatograph (Song et al., 2019).
 
Amino acids evaluation
 
The amino acids score (AAS), chemical score (CS) and essential amino acids index (EAAI) were calculated with the formulas as follows: (Pellett and Yong, 1980; Yang, 2005; Jiang and Yang, 2020).

 
  
Where,
aa is the amino acid content (%) of muscle protein in the dry sample; AA (FAO /WHO) and AA (Egg) are the FAO/WHO scoring mode and the same amino acid content (%) in the whole egg protein respectively; n is the number of essential amino acids; A, B, …, H and AE, BE, … and HE are the essential amino acid content (%) of the sample muscle protein and the whole egg protein respectively.
       
The F value was calculated according to the following formula (Tang et al., 2011).
 
  
 
Data statistics and processing
 
The data were analyzed with IBM SPSS statistics 24.0 software and the descriptive statistical values were expressed by mean ± standard deviation (X ± SD).

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Proximate composition
 
The proximate composition in fresh muscle of offshore C. nasus from SS (Fig 1) was shown in Table 1. The moisture content (69.80%) was higher than that from Shanghai (SH) (68.06%) (Teng et al., 2016), while lower than that from the other comparison sources. The protein content (18.18%) was lower than that from Dayang River (DYR) (18.43%) (Jiang and Yang, 2020), while higher than that from the other comparison sources. The fat content (10.52%) was lower than that from SH (16.54%) (Teng et al., 2016), while significantly higher than that from the other comparison sources. The ash content (1.41%) was lower than that from Changshu (CHS) (1.49%) (Liu et al., 2009), while significantly higher than that from SH (0.90%) (Teng et al., 2016). In fresh muscle of offshore C. nasus, the content of protein was moderate and the fat was higher, indicating that the protein nutrition of offshore C. nasus was moderate and the fat nutrition was better.
 

Table 1: Proximate composition (%) in fresh muscle of C. nasus from offshore of the Yangtze Estuary.


 
Amino acid composition
 
Eighteen amino acids were detected in the offshore C. nasus muscle from SS (Table 2). In dry samples, the content of total amino acids (TAA) was 57.06%, which was higher than that from Jiangyin (JY) (52.74%) (Wen et al., 2008), SH (37.35%) (Teng et al., 2016) and DYR (54.34% and 52.54%) (Jiang and Yang, 2020). The content of glutamic acid (Glu) was the highest (2.73%), which is not only delicious amino acids (DAA), but also plays an important role in intestinal energy supply and nutritional regulation (Qin et al., 2019). The content of lysine (Lys) was 1.72%, which was the highest essential amino acid (EAA). In this study, the ratio of EAA to TAA (EAA/TAA) was 42.10% and the ratio of EAA to nonessential amino acids (NEAA) (EAA/NEAA) was 84.84%, which was clear that, the content of different amino acids was stable and the constitutional rate of the essential amino acids met the FAO/WHO Standard (Teng et al., 2016). The balance effect of amino acid composition in muscle of offshore C. nasus is good, which is a high-quality protein source.
 

Table 2: Amino acids composition (%) in muscle of C. nasus from offshore of the Yangtze Estuary.


 
Amino acids evaluation
 
According to the method of Jiang and Yang (2020), the AAS, CS, EAAI and F values of offshore C. nasus muscle were calculated, respectively. Among the AAS and CS scores, the Lys was the highest, while tryptophan (Trp) was the lowest (Table 3). Lys had the highest score in AAS and CS and its content had exceeded the FAO/WHO standard and egg protein standard 1.74 and 1.34 times, respectively (Table 3). It can be used to make up for the lack of Lys in cereal food, enhance the absorption and utilization of protein and promote development (Wang and Zhao, 2018). The EAAI was 83.05 (Table 3), which was significantly higher than that from CHS (70.49%) (Liu et al., 2009) and DYR (59.82 and 65.44%) (Jiang and Yang, 2020). The F value was 2.37 (Table 3), which closed to the normal range of human and other mammals (3.0 - 3.5), higher than that of JY (2.17) (Wen et al., 2008) and CHS (2.17) (Liu et al., 2009), significantly higher than that of liver injury (1.0 - 1.5). It has the effects of protecting liver and reducing cholesterol (Xu et al., 2009b; Tang et al., 2011). In terms of DAA (21.64%), it was slightly lower than that from CHS (23.74%) (Liu et al., 2009) and Jingjiang (JJ) (22.60%) (Tang et al., 2011), while higher than that from the other comparison sources, which tasted delicious.
 

Table 3: Evaluation of essential amino acids composition in muscle of C. nasus from offshore of the Yangtze Estuary.


 
Fatty acid composition
 
Thirty-one kinds of fatty acids were detected in the muscle of offshore C. nasus (Table 4). The highest content of the saturated fatty acid (SFA) was 16:0 (23.70%), which was significantly higher than that from CHS (18.75%) (Liu et al., 2009) and Hangzhou Bay (HZB) (18.54%) (Xu et al., 2009b). The highest content of the monounsaturated fatty acid (MUFA) was 18:1n9c (45.50%), which was significantly higher than that from HZB (41.73%) (Xu et al., 2009 b) and DYR (40.83% and 39.70%) (Jiang and Yang, 2020). The highest content of the polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) was docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), followed by eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA). PUFA has many excellent physiological functions, such as enhancing immunity, preventing cancer, promoting blood circulation, softening cardiovascular and cerebrovascular vessels and reducing cholesterol (Li and Zhang, 2009). PUFA accounted for 15.20% in the muscle of offshore C. nasus, which was higher than that from HZB (13.20%) (Xu et al., 2009 b) and JY (4.74%) (Wen et al., 2008). By comparison, the content of C16:0, C18:1n9c, DHA and EPA in the muscle of offshore C. nasus was higher, which showed that, its muscle has juicy taste, fat reduction, anti-aging and anti-cancer effects.
 

Table 4: Fatty acids profile in muscle of C. nasus from offshore of the Yangtze Estuary.


 
Fatty acid evaluation
 
DHA and EPA are the n3 high unsaturated fatty acids (HUFA) with the total content of 10.67%, which was lower than that from DYR (13.51% and 18.89%) (Jiang and Yang, 2020), but higher than that from the other comparison sources. They can prevent cardiovascular diseases, inhibit platelet aggregation, enhance memory, improve intelligence, prevent Alzheimer’s disease, improve autoimmunity and anti-cancer activity (Bibus and Lands, 2015; Zárate et al., 2017). Previous studies have found that DHA is more effective than EPA in the treatment of cardiovascular and metabolic diseases (Innes and Calder, 2018; Mori, 2018). In this study, the content of DHA was more than EPA, with the ratio (DHA/EPA) of 1.74, which was significantly greater than that from CHS (0.50) (Liu et al., 2009) and HZB (0.44) (Xu et al., 2009 b). Therefore, the DHA and EPA nutritional composition is more suitable for people with cardiovascular diseases. In the fatty acid composition of human diet, n3 PUFA is generally insufficient, while n6 PUFA exceeds the standard (Stark et al., 2016), so it needs to be balanced by feeding rich n3 PUFA in fish. In this study, n3 PUFA was significantly higher than n6 PUFA with the ratio (n3 PUFA/n6 PUFA) of 6.12, higher than that from JY (1.47) (Wen et al., 2008) and CHS (2.78) (Liu et al., 2009), also higher than Pterois volitans (2.33) from the Alacranes reef, southern Gulf of Mexico (Aranda-González et al., 2020). The ratio is a good index for comparing relative nutritional value of fish (Song et al., 2020b) and a higher ratio of n3 PUFA/n6 PUFA shows the higher nutritional value of offshore C. nasus. Generally speaking, offshore C. nasus muscle had high n3 PUFA nutrition, which can be used to balance the nutritional demand of human body for n3 PUFA, especially for people with cardiovascular diseases.

CONCLUSION

In this study, the muscle nutritional components of offshore C. nasus were analyzed and evaluated. The muscle fat content was higher. The content of EAA, DAA, Glu and Lys are higher and the essential amino acids composition was balanced. 16:0, 18:1n9c, DHA and EPA were rich and the ratios of DHA/EPA and n3 PUFA/n6 PUFA were reasonable. On the whole, the muscle taste is delicate and juicy. The essential amino acids are rich and delicious, the HUFA showed health care effects. Through the analysis of the nutritional quality of offshore C. nasus, the basic data can be provided for the exploration of the nutritional status of C. nasus in the coastal waters and the theoretical basis will be served for the management, rational development and utilization of C. nasus outside the No fishing line of the Yangtze River in the future.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

This work was supported by the key project of promoting agriculture by science and technology in Shanghai (2019-02-08-00-07-F01129), the special research fund for the national non-profit institutes (Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences) (2020TD13), Key projects of national key R and D plan (2019YFD0901205); Jiangsu innovation and entrepreneurship team project (JSSCTD202120) and the Special project for the protection of agricultural species resources of the Ministry of agriculture and rural areas (17210163).

CONFLICT OF INTEREST

None.

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