Effect of Dietary Lipid Sources on Body Fatty Acid Composition of Chinese Longsnout Catfish Leiocassis longirostris

Abstract

Abstract We investigated the effects of dietary lipid sources on growth and fatty acid composition of juvenile Chinese longsnout catfish. Triplicate groups of fish (initial average weight, 3.8 g) were fed four diets containing either fish oil (FO), soybean oil (SO), linseed oil (LO) and lauric acid (LA) for 10 weeks. There were no differences among the groups in body weight, feed intake, feed effi-ciency, protein efficiency ratio, and body proximate composition of fish fed the diets containing different lipid sources ( P > 0.05) during the study. However, fatty acids compositions of the whole body were influenced by dietary lipid source. Fish fed the SO diet had high concentration of linoleic acid, whereas those of fish fed the LO diet were rich in linolenic acid and arachidonic acid. Fish fed the FO diet had significantly ( P < 0.05) higher levels of monounsaturated fatty acids such as 18:1n-9 and 20:1n-9 than those of fish fed the SO and LO diets. Eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA; 20:5n-3) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA; 22:6n-3) composition of body were not influenced by dietary lipid source. The results suggest that each of FO, SO, LO or LA can be used as a lipid source in the diets of Chinese longsnout catfish without any negative effects on growth and feed utilization and these data demonstrate the potential impact which dietary fat composition can change the body fatty acid profile.