Abstract
The biological invasion of the green algae Caulerpa cylindracea represents a serious scientific and public issue in the Mediterranean Sea, essentially due to strong modifications both to habitat structure and native benthic communities. Although alterations in health status and changes in flesh quality of some marine species (dietary exposed to C. cylindracea) have been observed, no studies on cause-effect relationships have been carried out. Here, for the first time, through a controlled feeding experiment followed by 1H NMR Spectroscopy and multivariate analysis (PCA, OPLS-DA), we showed that caulerpin taken with diet is directly responsible of changes observed in metabolic profile of fish flesh, including alteration of lipid metabolism, in particular with a reduction of ω3 PUFA content. The potential of caulerpin to directly modulate lipid metabolism opens up new questions about causal mechanism triggered by algal metabolite also in view of a possible exploitation in the nutraceutical/medical field.
Highlights
Biological invasions are, nowadays, a serious environmental issue, representing one of the most important cause of biodiversity loss, with severe ecological, socio-economic and human health repercussions [1,2]
The lipid extracts of fish muscle were characterized by the presence of lipids (TAGs, PUFA, DUFA, MUFA, saturated fatty acids (SFA)) and minor components such as sterols and phospholipids (Table 1)
Main lipid signals are marked in the 1 H NMR spectra (Figure 1), corresponding to -CH 2 in alpha and beta-position to the carboxylic acid esters (COOCH 2 CH 2 ), unsaturations (CH=CH-CH 2 -CH=CH) of various types of unsaturated fatty acids (UFA) and PUFA, such as docosahexaenoic (DHA C22:6, ω3), eicosapentaenoic acids (EPA C20:5, ω3) or other
Summary
Biological invasions are, nowadays, a serious environmental issue, representing one of the most important cause of biodiversity loss, with severe ecological, socio-economic and human health repercussions [1,2]. The growing awareness of the problem led to recognize the need of reaching a full understanding of mechanisms by which invasive species (IS) can impact biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. While their direct effects on biodiversity have been widely investigated, the subtle. Mar. Drugs 2018, 16, 390 indirect impacts of molecules (e.g., secondary metabolites) produced by IS on marine ecosystems and communities are almost unexplored [3,4]. Chemical compounds can play a key role in the invasion processes influencing the abundance and distribution of a certain species. Recent studies provided evidence that molecules from IS enter food chain and have a potential for bioaccumulation phenomena, exerting unexpected and dramatic impacts on native communities [5,6,7]
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