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Atlantic salmon adapt to low dietary n-3 PUFA and warmer water temperatures by increasing feed intake and expression of n-3 biosynthesis-related transcripts

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Abstract

Climate change can have cascading impacts on biochemical reactions in aquatic ecosystems. Aquatic ectotherms can adapt to surrounding temperatures by using long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (LC-PUFAs) to maintain cell membrane fluidity. In a warming scenario, less LC-PUFA is needed to maintain fluidity. Our objective was to determine the impact of low dietary LC-PUFA and warm water temperature on growth, fatty acid (FA) storage, and expression of lipid metabolism–related transcripts in Atlantic salmon. Salmon (141 g) were fed two diets (high or low LC-PUFA) at either 12 °C or 16 °C for 16 weeks. Salmon weighed more and consumed more food at 16 °C and when fed the low-LC-PUFA diet. Liver and muscle FA mostly depended on diet rather than temperature. DHA in muscle was higher at 16 °C and in salmon fed the high-LC-PUFA diet. Levels of FA desaturation transcripts were more highly expressed at 16 °C and in salmon fed the low-LC-PUFA diet, which suggests synthesis of LC-PUFA. Overall, with slow, chronic temperature increases, salmon may adapt to low dietary LC-PUFA by synthesizing more when required.

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Data generated or analyzed during this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Mr. John Batt and Mr. Paul MacIsaac for fish care and management, Ms. Nikera Singh for fish husbandry, and Ms. Jamie Fraser for feed production. We would also like to thank Dr. Matthew Rise, Department of Ocean Sciences, Memorial University of Newfoundland, for allowing access to some of equipment/software that was used in the transcript expression analyses.

Funding

This work was supported by a Discovery Grant by the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) awarded to S. Colombo (RGPIN/05400–2018).

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Colombo: writing original draft, supervision, and funding acquisition. Hall: data collection and analysis and manuscript writing and editing. Budge: supervision, methodology, and manuscript writing and editing. Kornicer: data collection and analysis and manuscript editing. White: data collection and analysis and manuscript editing. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Stefanie M. Colombo.

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Colombo, S.M., Budge, S.M., Hall, J.R. et al. Atlantic salmon adapt to low dietary n-3 PUFA and warmer water temperatures by increasing feed intake and expression of n-3 biosynthesis-related transcripts. Fish Physiol Biochem 49, 39–60 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10695-022-01157-2

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