Journal Article

Lipidomic signatures reveal seasonal shifts on the relative abundance of high-valued lipids from the brown algae Fucus vesiculosus

Coelho, Elisabete, Melo, Tânia, Pereira, Rui, Domingues, Pedro, Domingues, M. Rosário, Calado, Ricardo, Abreu, Maria H, Costa, Elisabete da

2019

Overview

Fucus vesiculosus is an edible brown macroalga, with health benefits associated with its consumption and also a source of bioactive molecules. It is acknowledged that the biochemical composition of macroalgae changes when exposed to different environmental conditions occurring on different habitats, such as the water temperature, and light intensity. In the present study, the polar lipidome of Fucus vesiculosus was characterized for the first time using modern high-resolution HILIC-MS, and MS/MS approaches, to evaluate the phenotypic variability in two seasons of the year, e.g., winter and spring. A total of 187 molecular species were identified over eighteen classes of glycolipids, phospholipids and betaine lipids. Principal component analysis (PCA) multivariate statistical analysis and cluster analysis of polar lipid classes, polar lipid species and total fatty acids (FA) datasets, showed clustering according to the seasonal groups. While the lipid profile of Fucus vesiculosus harvested in the winter and spring yielded the same molecular species, the relative abundance of these species was significantly different. In the winter, changes were mainly due to the increased relative abundance of some molecular species of glycolipids and phospholipids, bearing octadeca(poly)enoic (18:3, 18:4) and eicosa(poly)enoic (20:4, 20:5) FA and betaine lipids species with short saturated FA (14:0) and polyunsaturated FA (PUFA). Importantly, glycolipids with n-3 PUFA and sulfolipids, have been reported to have important biological activities and therapeutic value. Overall, Fucus vesiculosus is a promising source of bioactive compounds that can be used as functional food or ingredients for human nutrition, feed, pharma, and cosmetic formulations. In this study, samples harvested in the winter season maximized yields of these bioactive components, when compared with samples harvested in the spring.

• Publisher: MDPI,MDPI AG
• Subject: Abundance / acclimatisation / active ingredients / Algae / Aquaculture / Betaine / betaine lipids / Bioactive compounds / bioactive properties / Biochemical composition / Biological activity / Chromatography / Cluster analysis / Clustering / Cosmetics / Data analysis / data collection / Environmental conditions / environmental factors / fatty acid composition / Fatty acids / Formulations / Fucus - chemistry / Fucus - metabolism / Fucus vesiculosus / functional foods / Functional foods & nutraceuticals / Genetic variability / Glycolipids / habitats / Human nutrition / ingredients / Light intensity / Lipids / Lipids - analysis / Lipids - chemistry / Luminous intensity / macroalgae / Mass Spectrometry / multivariate analysis / Multivariate statistical analysis / Nutrition / omega-3 fatty acids / Pharmaceuticals / phenotypic variation / Phospholipids / Phytochemicals - chemistry / Polyunsaturated fatty acids / principal component analysis / Principal components analysis / Relative abundance / Scientific imaging / season / Seasons / Species / Spring / Spring (season) / Statistical analysis / Statistical methods / Sulfolipids / tandem mass spectrometry / therapeutics / Water temperature / Winter