Abstract
Lake Taal is one of the largest producers of inland fish in the Philippines and has one of the largest freshwater wet markets in Luzon. These unregulated wet markets sell fishes in unreasonable prices and thereby, exploit the knowledge of consumers on the validity of the prices. This study was designed to quantify the proteins in fish muscle tissues and to validate the effectivity of the various protein quantitation methods. Twelve different species of fish samples were freshly collected from Lake Taal. Muscle tissues were removed and lyophilized before subjecting to comparative protein quantitation methods using direct photometry, ovalbumin assay, and Bradford’s assay. These techniques were selected due to their accessibility and the use of photometry for quantitation. The results show that the means were significantly different for all the methods according to ANOVA. These results were confirmed with post-hoc Tukey HSD test, Scheffe test, and Bonferroni and Holm multiple comparison (BHMC) tests with p < 0.01. Bradford’s Assay was the ideal method with an RSD of less than 1% for all the samples, with no negative concentrations, and with concentration ranging from fifteen to twenty percent. P. leopardus had the highest amount of proteins, followed by M. cephalus, L. plumbeus, C. chanos, H. quoyi, and A. semipunctata. Interestingly, the study revealed that O. niloticus, which is one of the species with a high market price had the lowest protein concentration. With these results, the lowly commercialized fishes such as M. cephalus, L. plumbeus, H. quoyi, and A. semipunctata which are used as gamefish, fish bait, and aquarium displays should be commercialized more than the unstable populations of P. leopardus and C. chanos. Overall, this study revealed comparative information on protein quantitation methods, and market price-nutritional values correspondence.
Highlights
The fish industry has been one of the main contributors on food consumption in the region for over decades, and the Philippines has been ranked 11th in the world in 2017 for freshwater fish consumption (Helgi Library, 2018)
The non-destructive photometry at 260 nm and 280 nm showed protein concentrations ranging from -3 to
It was followed by L. plumbeus at 16.5545%, C. chanos at 16.2916%, S. melantotheron at 15.7849%, G. paganellus at 14.4832%, and P. leopardus at 11.4035% (Table 4). These findings were not consistent with the values described by photometry (Fig. 4), but the species in the upper 50% were all the same. The findings of this method supported the recommendations in photometry that species such as S. melanotheron and G. plumbeus with stable populations and high protein contents but with lower commercialization should be commercialized more than the unstable expensive species such as P. leopardus, O. niloticus, and C. chanos
Summary
The fish industry has been one of the main contributors on food consumption in the region for over decades, and the Philippines has been ranked 11th in the world in 2017 for freshwater fish consumption (Helgi Library, 2018). The protein quantitation of the fishes found in Lake Taal gives an imperative assessment of the nutritional profiles as reference for conservation management on species distribution and cost correspondence in unregulated markets. The standards and the diluted extracted samples were placed in plastic cuvettes and their respective absorbances were measured through U-2900 Spectrophotometer coupled with the UV Solutions software.
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