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Replacement of Dietary Fish Oils by Alpha-Linolenic Acid-Rich Oils Lowers Omega 3 Content in Tilapia Flesh

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Lipids

Abstract

A 20-week feeding trial was conducted to determine whether increasing linolenic acid (18:3n-3) in vegetable oil (VO) based diets would lead to increased tissue deposition of 22:6n-3 in Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus). Five isonitrogenous and isoenergetic diets were supplemented with 3% of either linseed oil (LO), a mixture of linseed oil with refined palm olein oil (PO) (LO–PO 2:1) and a mixture of refined palm olein oil with linseed oil (PO–LO 3:2) or with fish oil (FO) or corn oil (CO) as controls. The PO–LO, LO–PO and LO diets supplied a similar amount of 18:2n-6 (0.5% of diet by dry weight) and 0.5, 0.7 and 1.1% of 18:3n-3, respectively. Increased dietary 18:3n-3 caused commensurate increases in longer-chain n-3 PUFA and decreases in longer-chain n-6 PUFA in the muscle lipids of tilapia. However, the biosynthetic activities of fish fed the LO-based diets were not sufficient to raise the tissue concentrations of 20:5n-3, 22:5n-3 and 22:6n-3 to those of fish fed FO. The study suggests that tilapia (O. niloticus) has a limited capacity to synthesise 20:5n-3 and 22:6n-3 from dietary 18:3n-3. The replacement of FO in the diet of farmed tilapia with vegetable oils could therefore lower tissue concentrations of 20:5n-3 and 22:6n-3, and consequently produce an aquaculture product of lower lipid nutritional value for the consumer.

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Abbreviations

CO:

Corn oil

FCR:

Food conversion ratio

FAME:

Fatty acid methyl ester

FO:

Fish oil

LO:

Linseed oil

MUFA:

Monounsaturated fatty acid

PER:

Protein efficiency ratio

PO:

Palm olein oil

PUFA:

Polyunsaturated fatty acid

SFA:

Saturated fatty acid

SGR:

Specific growth rate

TL:

Total lipid

VO:

Vegetable oil

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Acknowledgments

We thank James Dick for help with the fatty acid analysis, the staff of the Asian Institute of Technology (Pathumthani, Thailand) and Charoen Pokphand Foods feed mill (Samut Sakorn, Thailand) for their assistance with this experiment.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Aquaculture, University of Stirling, Stirling, FK9 4LA, Scotland

    Ioannis T. Karapanagiotidis, Michael V. Bell & David C. Little

  2. School of Environment, Resources and Development, Asian Institute of Technology, Pathumthani, 12120, Thailand

    Amararatne Yakupitiyage

Authors
  1. Ioannis T. Karapanagiotidis
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  2. Michael V. Bell
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  3. David C. Little
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  4. Amararatne Yakupitiyage
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Correspondence to Michael V. Bell.

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Karapanagiotidis, I.T., Bell, M.V., Little, D.C. et al. Replacement of Dietary Fish Oils by Alpha-Linolenic Acid-Rich Oils Lowers Omega 3 Content in Tilapia Flesh. Lipids 42, 547–559 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11745-007-3057-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11745-007-3057-1

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