Fatty Acids’ Profiles of Aquatic Organisms: Revealing the Impacts of Environmental and Anthropogenic Stressors

Abstract

There is a great concern about the impacts of climate changes namely due to salinity seawater and temperature alterations in aquatic organisms with the estuarine and coastal environments being the major affected areas. The intensive usage of chemicals in an indiscriminate way in agriculture practices, achieving, in some cases, values above the limits of contamination authorized by the European legislation, also drastically affects the surrounded estuarine areas with profound consequences to the water quality and the aquatic communities. It is known that stressors affect organisms' physiological conditions with recent works concerning alterations in the fatty acid (FA) profiles associated with environmental and contamination events that become more frequent. FA plays a key role in immune and physiological functions and is associated with the prevention of some diseases, shown to be good bio-indicators to assess the organisms' impacts under stress conditions. Thus, this chapter proposes to address natural (salinity and temperature) and chemical (herbicide and metal) stressors' impacts in the FA profiles of Thalassiosira weissflogii and Cerastoderma edule and infers about the effects on organisms' physiological processes and along the food web. Consequences in food resources and to healthier and nutritious food consumption with benefits to human beings are also assessed.

A Comprehensive Review of the Nutraceutical and Therapeutic Applications of Red Seaweeds (Rhodophyta)

“…Seaweeds are known as a low-energy, low-caloric food, and an explanation for this is the low content in lipids. Besides that, in recent years, interest in the lipid composition of marine algae has raised considerably because a big part of seaweed lipid content is constituted by ω-3 and ω-6 PUFAs, specifically α-linolenic (18:3ω-3), octadecatetraenoic (18:4ω-3), arachidonic (20:4ω-6), and eicosapentaenoic (20:5ω-3) acids [27][28][29]. Indeed, algae are essentially the only organisms able to produce long-chain PUFAs, ranging from 14 to 24 carbons, due to the presence of specific enzymes responsible for desaturation processes [29,30].…”

“…PUFAs are all the fatty acids that contain more than one unsaturation (double bond) in their backbone and include the EFAs. EFAs, mainly eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), play an important role in immunomodulation, in brain development, and in other physiological functions, such as cellular signaling, the regulation of transcription factors, and in the treatment and prevention of some cancer, ocular, cardiovascular, neurodegenerative, and autoimmune diseases [27].…”

Fatty acid profile and antioxidant status inVenus verrucosagills as λ-cyhalothrin toxic effects

“…Because of their importance in the health/stability of the marine ecosystem, FAs are judged to be an accurate tool in trophic interaction and stage of larval development and growth (Arts et al, 2001; Finotello et al, 2017). Recent studies have suggested that changes in FA constituents or profiles are a good tool to evaluate the effect of environmental change and exposure to contaminants in marine organisms (Gonçalves et al, 2017; Trabelsi et al, 2019). Highly unsaturated FAs, such as the eicosapentaenoic acid (C20:5n-3, EPA), docosahexaenoic acid (C22:6n-3, DHA), and arachidonic acid (C20:4n-6, ARA), are a subset of the polyunsaturated FAs (PUFAs) with a chain of 20 carbon atoms or more and with three or more double bonds that play a key role in cellular and tissue growth, energy storage and neural development (Arts et al, 2001), as well as enhancing the organisms’ adaptation to environmental stress (Neves et al, 2015).…”

Effect of Nutrient Enrichment and Turbidity on Interactions Between Microphytobenthos and a Key Bivalve: Implications for Higher Trophic Levels

“…This suggests that bivalve nutritional quality was compromised (Jaschinski et al, 2008;Ruano et al, 2012). The higher proportion of bacterial FAs in M. liliana tissue suggests M. liliana ingested more bacteria or organic matter that had been processed via the microbial loop (Mayzaud et al, 1990;Gonçalves et al, 2017). The higher proportion of diatoms in the sediment and the shift in bivalve quality suggests the changes to the MPB community stimulated bacterial communities, which in turn lowered the quality of the bivalves.…”