Phospholipid Distribution and Phospholipid Fatty Acids of the Tropical Tunicates Eudistoma sp. and Leptoclinides uniorbis

Abstract

Two tunicates, Eudistoma sp. and Leptoclinides uniorbis, collected from the tropical waters off Djibouti were investigated for lipids and phospholipid (PL) fatty acids. PL accounted for 38.2% of the total lipids in Eudistoma sp. and for 30.2% in L. uniorbis. PL classes were quantified by normal-phase high-performance liquid chromatography using an evaporative light-scattering detector and revealed essential differences. Eudistoma sp. contained mainly phosphatidylcholine (PC, 70.3% of total PL) and lysophosphatidylcholine (LPC, 11.9%) and was devoid of phosphatidylserine (PS), whereas the major PL of L. uniorbis was PS (59.1%) followed by PC (22.5%) and LPC (8.8%). Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry analyses of fatty acid (FA) derivatives revealed 38 FA in Eudistoma sp., and 35 FA in L. uniorbis, ranged from C(12) to C(24) chain lengths. Polyunsaturated FA accounted for 25.9% in Eudistoma sp. and for 32.3% in L. uniorbis. Interestingly, L. uniorbis contained a high percentage (16.7%) of the 20:5n-3 acid (8.9% in Eudistoma sp.) and the 18:4n-3 acid (4.1%). Significant levels of the 20:4n-6 acid were observed in both organisms (7.8 and 6.0% respectively). Eudistoma sp. contained the rare 20:3n-7 acid (2.3%) only recorded to date in hydrothermal vent animals. The cyclopropane dihydrosterculic acid was identified in both tunicates (0.7 and 0.5% respectively). These latter FA, together with some unusual branched saturated and monounsaturated FA, revealed the occurrence of associated bacteria in the tunicates. Another noticeable feature was a series of eight C(16) to C(18) aldehyde dimethylacetals revealing the presence of plasmalogens at 5.0% in Eudistoma sp. and 14.2% in L. uniorbis. The results of this study were compared with those previously published for other tunicates regarding mainly PL content and FA composition.

Multiple Beneficial Lipids Including Lecithin Detected in the Edible Invasive Mollusk Crepidula fornicata from the French Northeastern Atlantic Coast

“…After adding 0.01% w/w of BHT (butylated hydroxytoluene) as antioxidant, all extracts were stored at −20 °C under nitrogen before analysis. These organic extracts were then evaporated to provide crude total lipids, which were chromatographed on an open silica gel column (290 mm × 25 mm, 60 Å, 35–75 μm) with dichloromethane (neutral lipids), acetone (glycolipids) and methanol (PLs) as successive eluents as previously described [ 46 ].…”

“…High-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) analysis of PLs was performed as previously described [ 46 ]. Briefly, a modular UltiMate.…”

Individual variations of the phospholipid compositions of the organs of arthropods, echinoderms, and tunicates from peter the Great Bay of the Sea of Japan

“…The majority of studies on the PL compositions of tunicates were conducted on one or two species, sepa rate organs or tissues and, as a rule, were dedicated to some special problem of PL biochemistry [6,8,13,14,18,19,[21][22][23]. The literature does not provide any information on individual variation of the PL contents in ascidians.…”

“…Data on phospholipid (PL) compositions for entire organ isms and individual organs have been published for decapods [7][8][9]17], sea stars [8,11,24,10], and ascidians [10,12,[18][19][20][21][22][23]. It is noteworthy that the cited studies were conducted on total lipid extracts that were obtained from a few specimens.…”

Phospholipids of the organs and tissues of echinoderms and tunicates from peter the great bay (Sea of Japan)

“…These authors corroborated the conclusions of Hack et al [23] that the PL composition is primarily determined by the systematic position of an animal, while its habitat caused a less significant effect. Recent works, as a rule, were devoted to discussions of the special issues of PL biochemistry, publishing results from studying the PL composition of organs or tissues of one or two types of animal, such as ascidians [20] and pelagic tunicates [21,26,28]. We would note the publications that have examined the role of food chains in the fatty acid (FA) composition of lipids of deep sea holothurians and brittle stars [22], considered the structure of the alke nyl, alkyl, and acyl chains of sperm PLs of the sea urchin Hemicentrotus pulcherrimus [27], PL ether forms in the gonads of the sea urchin Strongylocentro tus intermedius and internal organs of the ascidian Halocynthia roretzi [25], defined the role of sphin gosine bases of gonads and internal organs of the sea star Asterias amurensis in the apoptosis of colon cancer [30], and provided information on the temperature effect on the lipid composition of egg membranes of the sea urchin Strongylocentrotus purpuratus [31].…”