Abstract:To investigate the effect of starvation on amino acids and fatty acids of muscle in juvenile large yellow croaker Larimichthys crocea, 540 healthy fish with similar body weight (40.80±3.40 g) were selected for the experiment. The muscle was sampled from experimental fish after 0, 4, 8, 12, 16, and 20 days of starvation for chemical analysis, respectively. Results showed that starvation significantly affected methionine content (P<0.05), which reached the lowest content (0.48%±0.12%) after 8 days of starvation and obtained the highest content (1.62%±0.23%) after 16 days of starvation. However, the other 15 kinds of amino acids showed no significant difference among the different groups (P>0.05), with the same trends of increased at first and then decreased when starvation time was prolonged. Also, the non-essential amino acids, essential amino acids, flavored amino acids, essential amino acids and total amino acids showed the same changing trends as the 15 kinds of amino acids. As for fatty acid, starvation had significant effects on the fatty acid content in muscle of juvenile L. crocea (P<0.05). Among them, the saturated fatty acids (SFA) increased first and then decreased with the prolongation of starvation, and reached the maximum content after 8 days of starvation (30.90%±0.28%); monounsaturated fatty acid (MUFA) content among different treatment groups was not significantly different (P>0.05), but all the treatment groups were slightly larger than that of the control group (starvation for 0 day); polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) content showed an increasing trend after the first drop, and the lowest value was in the group of that was starved for 12 days (31.87%±0.65%). From the above research results, we know that the amino acid and fatty acid contents in the muscle related to meat quality can be changed by proper starvation treatment, which can improve the meat flavor of L. crocea. These results have important theoretical and directive significance for improving meat quality of L. crocea through proper starvation treatment in the process of L. crocea culturing.
