Interactive effect of dietary fish oil and pyrimidine nucleotide supplementation on the fatty acid composition of juvenile rainbow trout Oncorhynchus mykiss : Enhancement of ARA and DHA contents in the fillet of fish fed‐supplemented diet

Abstract

The present study investigated interactive effect of different levels of dietary fish oil and pyrimidine nucleotide supplementation on growth and fatty acid composition of juvenile rainbow trout. Six experimental diets were formulated with two different levels of fish oil. High fish oil (HFO) diet contains 120 g/kg fish oil, while low fish oil (LFO) diet contains 40, 60 and 20 g/kg fish, linseed and rapeseed oils respectively. Uridine 5’-monophosphate (UMP) or cytidine 5’-monophosphate (CMP) disodium salt was supplemented onto each diet at 1.5 g/kg respectively. For control diet, UMP and CMP were not supplemented to HFO and LFO diets respectively (HFO-Cont. and LFO-Cont.). Rainbow trout with initial average body weight of 13.5 g were randomly placed into 12 tanks and offered one of the six diets for 12 weeks. Growth, feed utilization and hepatosomatic index (HSI) of fish were not influenced by either fish oil or pyrimidine nucleotide supplementation. This trend was also similar on the crude lipid content in the liver and proximate composition in the muscle and whole fish body. In addition, fatty acid composition in the liver was influenced by fish oil level, but not by pyrimidine nucleotide supplementation. Interestingly, pyrimidine nucleotide supplementation affected 20:4n-6 and 22:6n-3 contents in the muscle of fish. In summary, although dietary UMP and CMP have no positive effect on growth, it affected on the fatty acid composition of fish by increasing muscular 20:4n-6 and 22:6n-3 contents particularly when it is supplemented in low fish oil-based diet.