Liver lipids of gonatid squid Berryteuthis magister: A rich source of alkyl glyceryl ethers.

Abstract

The content and composition of alkyl glyceryl ethers of liver lipids of gonatid squid Berryteuthis magister in the Sea of Japan were investigated.Weight of the livers of thirty-four specimens of this species accounted for 9.0±1.8% of total body weight; 23.8±9.1% of the liver was lipids. The liver lipids contained high quantities of unsaponifiables (26.7±4.0%), consisting of 55.2±11.4% alkyl glyceryl ethers and 41.9±11.7% sterols. Alkyl glyceryl ethers and sterols originated from diacyl glyceryl ethers (27.5±9.0%) and steryl esters (12.0±5.6%), respectively. The relationship between the amount (Y, g) of alkyl glyceryl ethers of liver and liver weight (X, g) was expressed by the following equation: Y=-0.556+0.077X, (r=0.961, P〈0.05).The component alkyl glyceryl ethers were found to consist mostly of saturates (69.8±4.9%) and monoenes (27.4±4.7%) of 14-20 carbon numbers for the alkyl moiety. The principal components found were: chimyl (16:0, 58.7±6.4%), selachyl (18:1, 24.6±4.6%), and batyl (18:0, 6.6±1.9%) alcohols. This indicated that the liver of the gonatid squid species was a good source of alkyl glyceryl ethers having chimyl alcohol as its predominant component.