Protein, Essential Amino Acid, and Fatty Acid Composition of Five Target Fishery Species of Central Mediterranean Sea
Anna Traina,
Enza Maria Quinci,
Nadia Sabatino,
Marianna Del Core,
Antonio Bellante,
Gioacchino Bono,
Marta Giuga,
Giuseppe Avellone,
Mario Sprovieri,
Fabio D’Agostino
Affiliations
Anna Traina
National Research Council of Italy, Institute of Anthropic Impacts and Sustainability in Marine Environment (CNR-IAS), 90149 Palermo, Italy
Enza Maria Quinci
National Research Council of Italy, Institute of Anthropic Impacts and Sustainability in Marine Environment (CNR-IAS), Torretta Granitola-Campobello di Mazara, 91021 Trapani, Italy
Nadia Sabatino
National Research Council of Italy, Institute of Anthropic Impacts and Sustainability in Marine Environment (CNR-IAS), 90149 Palermo, Italy
Marianna Del Core
National Research Council of Italy, Institute of Anthropic Impacts and Sustainability in Marine Environment (CNR-IAS), Torretta Granitola-Campobello di Mazara, 91021 Trapani, Italy
Antonio Bellante
National Research Council of Italy, Institute of Anthropic Impacts and Sustainability in Marine Environment (CNR-IAS), Torretta Granitola-Campobello di Mazara, 91021 Trapani, Italy
Gioacchino Bono
National Research Council of Italy, Institute for Biological Resources and Marine Biotechnology (CNR-IRBIM), Mazara Del Vallo, 91026 Trapani, Italy
Marta Giuga
National Research Council of Italy, Institute of Anthropic Impacts and Sustainability in Marine Environment (CNR-IAS), 16149 Genova, Italy
Giuseppe Avellone
Department of Biological, Chemical and Pharmaceutical Sciences and Technologies (STEBICEF), University of Palermo, Via Archirafi 32, 90123 Palermo, Italy
Mario Sprovieri
National Research Council of Italy, Institute of Marine Science (CNR-ISMAR), 30122 Venezia, Italy
Fabio D’Agostino
National Research Council of Italy, Institute of Anthropic Impacts and Sustainability in Marine Environment (CNR-IAS), Torretta Granitola-Campobello di Mazara, 91021 Trapani, Italy
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.