PHOSPHOLIPIDS OF MARINE ORIGIN - THE LANTERN FISH (LAMPANYCTODES-HECTORIS)

Lantern fish of the species Lampanyctodes hectoris were shown to contain phospholipids (10 g kg-1) and non-phosphorylated lipids (140 g kg-1). The phospholipid fraction consisted of phosphatidyl choline (47% of total phospholipids), phosphatidyl ethanolamine (42%), phosphatidyl serine (3%), phosphatidyl inositol (1%), sphingomyelin (4%), lyso-phosphatidyl choline (1%) and cardiolipins (2%). Lantern fish (L hectoris) meals normally contain unacceptably high lipid contents (150 g kg-1 and over); this characteristic was found not to be due to a high phospholipid level in the lantern fish. The major fatty acid of the phospholipids was C22:6n-3 (25% total fatty acids) followed by C16:0 (18%), C18:1n-9 (16%) and C20:5n-3 (8%). This distribution was different from that of the non-phosphorylated lipids where the major fatty acid was C16:0 (21%) followed by C18:1n-9 (19%), C20:5n-3 (11%), C20:1 (7%) and C22:6n-3 (7%). The lantern fish press oil and residual meal lipids had fatty acid distributions similar to those of the non-phosphorylated lipids.