Occurrence of unusually high level of wax esters in deep-sea teleost fish muscle, Hoplostethus atlanticus.

Abstract

The lipid composition of the muscle of the deep-sea teleost fish, Hoplostethus atlanticus, caught out at sea off New Zealand was determined. In this species, the muscle contained 4.5% lipids, of which wax esters contained unusually high level of 88.6% with small amounts of triglycerides (1.3%), hydrocarbons (2.7%), sterols and fatty alcohols (2.2%), and phospholipids (5.2%). The fatty alcohol components of wax esters were composed mostly of saturates (39.8%) and monoenes (53.9%) with 14-24 carbon atoms: the major constituents were 16:0 (28.3%), 20:1 (17.1%), 18:1 (16.2%), 22:1 (14.5%), and 18:0 (7.6%). the fatty acid composition of wax esters consisted predominantly of monoenes with 18:1 (59.4%) as the main component. Little difference in the fatty acid compositions between wax esters and triglycerides showed that the contents of monoenes in the former and saturates in the latter were relatively large. In contrast, the component fatty acids of phospholipids contained considerabe amounts of polyenes.