Abstract
In this study, the metabolome of Ruditapes decussatus, an economically and ecologically important marine bivalve species widely distributed in the Mediterranean region, was characterized by using proton Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (1H-NMR) spectroscopy. Significant seasonal variations in the content of carbohydrates and free amino acids were observed. The relative amounts of alanine and glycine were found to exhibit the same seasonal pattern as the temperature and salinity at the harvesting site. Several putative sex-specific biomarkers were also discovered. Substantial differences were found for alanine and glycine, whose relative amounts were higher in males, while acetoacetate, choline and phosphocholine were more abundant in female clams. These findings reveal novel insights into the baseline metabolism of the European clam and represent a step forward towards a comprehensive metabolic characterization of the species. Besides providing a holistic view on the prominent nutritional components, the characterization of the metabolome of this bivalve represents an important prerequisite for elucidating the underlying metabolic pathways behind the environment-organism interactions.
Highlights
The omics techniques are advanced analytical disciplines aimed at the study of pools of biological macromolecules such as DNA, RNA, proteins as well as small metabolites in a given organism
The present study was conducted as follows: (i) the water temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen and pH were measured at the clams harvesting site; (ii) the clams were sampled and sex and parasitosis status were determined by microscopic inspection; (iii) the hydrophilic metabolome of the mollusks was characterized by high resolution 1 H-NMR spectroscopy; and (iv) multivariate data analysis was employed to explore the metabolic profiles for discriminatory information about season and sex
This study has demonstrated the strength of the NMR metabolomics approach for the qualitative and quantitative characterization of the Ruditapes decussatus metabolic profile and its changes when exposed to environmental stressors
Summary
The omics techniques (i.e., genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics and metabolomics) are advanced analytical disciplines aimed at the study of pools of biological macromolecules such as DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid), RNA (ribonucleic acid), proteins as well as small metabolites (amino acids, organic acids and sugars) in a given organism. The metabolomics approach has successfully been applied in several fields from nutrition science to ecology where it is used as a valuable monitoring tool of the quality (i.e., chemical and biological contamination) of the environment [2] In the latter case, the application of metabolomics to the study of the interactions of organisms with their environment, known as environmental metabolomics, has proven to be a powerful analytical tool for assessing organism function and health [3,4,5,6,7,8]. An organism’s response to these factors includes multiple behavioral and physiological adaptations that may result in changes in the metabolic features In this context, the great potential of metabolomics has been shown in several aspects within the seafood processing and production line and some perspectives on the development of innovative metabolomics strategies for the assessment of the health and welfare of wild and cultured aquatic organisms have recently been provided [10,11]. The metabolomics approach has recently been proposed as a novel analytical tool for biomarker discovery in the aquaculture field since specific molecules can be used to evaluate the pre- and post-harvest quality, food safety and traceability [10,11]
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