F. Bellagamba

F. Caprino

L. Borella

M. Vasconi

V.M. Moretti

AIR Universita degli studi di Milano

Evolution of fatty acid profile of gilthead sea breams during the decade 2005-2014 
 
 Mauro Vasconi*, Fabio Caprino, Federica Bellagamba, Laura Borella, Vittorio Maria Moretti 
 
Department of Health, Animal Science and Food Safety, Università degli Studi di Milano, Via 
Trentacoste 2, 20134 Milan, Italy 
* Corresponding author: mauro.vasconi@unimi.it 
 
 
 
The aquafeed industry is facing the progressive lack of availability and high price of fish meal and 
oil, in the formulation of feeds. Nowadays the increasing use of plant derived oils and oils obtained 
from by-products of farmed fish have modified the fatty acid (FA) composition of sea bass and sea 
breams feeds. To investigate how this process is changing the lipid profile of farmed fish we 
compared the FA composition of sea breams collected on the Italian market during last year with a 
similar carried out in 2005. The sampling covered sea breams of different origin, mirroring the 
presence of different country products in the Italian market. In 2005 we sampled 46 fish, 18 farmed 
in Greece, 15 from Italy, 10 from Croatia and 3 from Turkey. In 2014 we sampled a total of 44 sea 
breams, 18 farmed in Italy, 14 from Greece, 6 from Turkey, 3 from Croatia and 3 from Malta. In 
addition to we sampled also 21 wild sea breams: 19 during the 2005 and 2 during 2014. Lipid 
content of fillets was determined by chloroform/methanol extraction, FA methyl esters were 
analyzed by gas-chromatography. In order to compare different samples and to detect the most 
important fatty acids affecting the distribution of fish samples, data were processed by principal 
component analysis using FA. Lipid content of farmed sea breams has proven quite stable in the 
period of the trial, 2.8% in 2014 and 2.6% in 2005. Farmed sea breams, showed a higher lipid 
content respect of wild ones, where the lipid of muscle were found at 0.7%. Concerning FA, sea 
breams appeared well separated according of their year of farming and type of production. The 
2014 sea bream were more characterized by linoleic and oleic acids, and they showed a smaller 
spatial dispersion compared with the 2005 sea breams, which were placed in the intermediate 
position between wild fish and 2014-farmed ones and resulted less homogeneous concerning their 
spatial distribution. Wild fish were characterized by the presence of a higher amount of n-3 
polyunsaturated fatty acid and arachidonic acid without differences between 2005 and 2014. Our 
study confirms that the increase of plant derived oils and fish by-products oils is modifying the FA 
profile of sea breams. The 2014 fish present the higher difference from wild ones. The small spatial 
dispersion of 2014 fish suggests a tendency to a standardization of the fish feeds, which was lower 
in 2005, when probably there was more variation of the lipid sources used in feed formulation.  
 


Evolution of fatty acid profile of gilthead sea breams during the decade 2005-2014

https://air.unimi.it/retrieve/handle/2434/282837/404694/Orate%20Abstract%20ASPA.pdf

Evolution of fatty acid profile of gilthead sea breams during the decade 2005-2014

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