Abstract
Seafood coloration is typically considered an indicator of quality and nutritional value by consumers. One such seafood is the Xishi abalone (Haliotis gigantea), which displays muscle color polymorphism wherein a small subset of individuals display orange coloration of muscles due to carotenoid enrichment. However, the metabolic basis for carotenoid accumulation has not been thoroughly investigated in marine mollusks. Here, GC-TOF-MS-based untargeted metabolite profiling was used to identify key pathways and metabolites involved in differential carotenoid accumulation in abalones with variable carotenoid contents. Cholesterol was the most statistically significant metabolite that differentiated abalones with orange muscles against those with common white muscles. This observation is likely due to the competitive interactions between cholesterol and carotenoids during cellular absorption. In addition, the accumulation of carotenoids was also related to fatty acid contents. Overall, this study indicates that metabolomics can reflect physiological changes in organisms and provides a useful framework for exploring the mechanisms underlying carotenoid accumulation in abalone types.
Highlights
Carotenoids are naturally occurring orange and bright-yellow pigments that are found in fruits, vegetables, and certain shellfish and are responsible for coloration in many animals[1,2]
The analysis of organismal metabolomics via GC-MS has been widely used in recent years to evaluate the metabolic state of various biological models
Metabolomic profiling in concert with gas chromatography has been coupled to time-of-flight mass analyzers (GC-TOF-MS) to measure changes in endogenous metabolites of a rat model and identify potential biomarkers of estrogen-deficiency-induced obesity[28]
Summary
Carotenoids are naturally occurring orange and bright-yellow pigments that are found in fruits, vegetables, and certain shellfish and are responsible for coloration in many animals[1,2]. The noble scallop (Chlamys nobilis) and Yesso scallop (Patinopecten yessoensis) contain significantly higher carotenoid contents in their orange adductor muscles than in other tissues. Transcriptional analyses have shown that a novel class B scavenger receptor termed SRB-like-3 is significantly associated with high carotenoid content and the orange coloration of the noble scallop[17]. The carotenoid-based orange coloration of some H. gigantea muscles provides a useful framework for investigating the mechanisms of carotenoid accumulation in marine mollusks. Identifying the specific metabolite differences associated with differential carotenoid accumulation can provide a more complete picture of the physiological state of individuals during this process[24]. An integrated analysis of the transcriptome and metabolome of three colored potato cultivars provided evidence for a regulatory system that is involved in the pigmentation of germinated sprouts[26]
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