Information about composition of deep-sea edible part might raise their value as table food. Proximate composition of few fin fish species from North Atlantic, eastern North Pacific has been reported. No literature is available for either fin fish or shell fish from deep waters off the Indian EEZ.

1. STUDIES ON BIOCHEMICAL, NUTRITIONAL
AND HEAVY METAL ANALYSIS ON SOME
SELECTED DEEP-SEA FISHERY SAMPLES ALONG
THE INDIAN EEZ (EXCLUSIVE ECONOMIC
ZONE) AND CENTRAL INDIAN OCEAN
RUSHINADHA RAO KAKARA
Senior Research Fellow
ICAR-CIFT (central institute of fisheries
technology),
Visakhapatnam

2. PRESENT STATUS OF KNOWLEDGE IN THE AREA OF
RESEARCH ACTIVITY
 India has 7517 kilometers of marine coastline, 3,827
fishing villages, and 1,914 traditional fish landing centers.
 India’s fresh water resources consist of 195,210
kilometers of rivers and canals, 2.9 million hectares of
minor and major reservoirs, 2.4 million hectares of ponds
and lakes, and about 0.8 million hectares of flood plain
wetlands and water bodies (FAO, 2006).
 Fisheries are one of the fastest growing sectors in India
and contribute 1.0% of GDP and 5.4% of Agricultural
GDP.

3.  Seafood is always in news as it is proclaimed to be most
nutritious and healthy food as well as being linked to increasing
number of food borne outbreaks across the globe.
 In the nutritional front, fish accounts for 16.6 percent of the global
population intake of animal protein and 6.5% of all protein
consumed (FAO, 2012).
 The trawling pressure on the coastal resources is increasing
year by year.
 The fishing effort is being concentrated in the coastal waters
leaving the deeper waters unexplored and unexploited.
 Commercially not much effort is put up in exploiting the deep-sea
resources, except for deep-sea shrimps and lobsters in south
Kerala region and Wadge bank areas.

4.  The major requirements are distant water fleets, availability of
conventional species, proper fishing gear and suitable fishing
grounds.
 Considering economics, it is very essential to take up studies to
locate the resources, their abundance, biology and other
population parameters for the available deep-sea resources.
 Not much work is done in exploring the deep-sea resources of
Indian EEZ. Deep sea is the largest ecosystem on Earth and one
of the least studied, harbours high biodiversity and provides a
wealth of resources.
 Processes for production of value added products from Deep
sea fishes are very essential.
 Studies and development of database on biochemical
composition and residue contaminants of deep sea resources is
the need of the hour.

5. SIGNIFICANCE AND UNIQUENESS OF THE
WORK
 Seafood lipids are rich source of essential and polyunsaturated
fatty acids.
 Lipid level in shell fishes are reported to be dependent on the
source and proportion of lipids in the diet, moulting cycle and the
season.
 In this study, crustaceans collected from the deep sea had fat
content varying from 2.37 to 3.32%, Whereas in deep-sea fishes fat
was in between 0.71 and 1.14%.
 The proximate composition analysis of the samples revealed that
the deep sea crustaceans, are also rich in protein content and it
could be used as table food as those caught from inshore areas.
 The significant difference observed between few parameters of
east coast and west coast could be due to the difference in feed
availability.

6.  Fish lipids contain less of saturated fat but they are rich in long chain
polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA).
 The most important of these are eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and
Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) which are important role in the development
and for prevention of thrombotic problem.
 EPA and DPA play an important role in the development of nerve cells in
growing children. Omega 3 fatty acids lower the risk of developing an
irregular heart rhythm and reduce blood cholesterol.
 Consumption of fish has been shown to associate particularly with lower risk
of sudden cardiac death. A high intake has been linked to a significant
decrease in age related memory loss.
 Fish is recommended as a nutritious food and consumption of fish should be
encouraged. The advantage of fish is that it is very easily digestible. Fish
meat is a good source of vitamins B, A, D and liver oils.
 Fish meat is a valuable source of calcium, phosphorus, iron, copper and
trace elements like selenium and zinc. Salt water fish contains high levels of
iodine.

7. OBJECTIVES
 Spatial mapping of deep-sea resources and related
attributes using Geographical Information System.
 Studies on the exploitation, assessment and biology of
some potential deep sea demersal resources.
 Nutritional and Biochemical analysis of some selected
demersal resources.
 Analysis of Heavy metals on deep-sea fishery samples.

8. OBJECTIVES
 Inventory of region specific resources
 Processes for production of value added products
from demersal fishes.
 Database on biochemical, nutritional composition and
residue contaminants of demersal fishes.
 Statistical analysis on residue contaminants of
demersal fishes.

9. METHODOLOGY
 The samples were collected from stations located in
the east and west coast of India, during the two deep-
sea cruises of the research vessel FORV Sagar
sampada, at the depth of 300 – 450 m using Expo and
High Speed Demersal Trawl developed by the Central
Institute of Fisheries Technology.
 The sampling was done from Fisheries Oceanography
Research Vessel of the Department of Ocean
Development, FORV Sagar sampada.
 Twenty samples of each species of almost the same
size were kept in polyethylene bags and stored in the
freezer at -20oC, until further analysis.

10. SAMPLE COLLECTION ONBOARD

12.  The moisture content was determined using the oven drying method
described in AOAC, 2000. Kjeldahl method was used to determine
the crude protein content of the samples (James, 1999).
 Acid hydrolysis method (AOAC, 2000) was used to determine the
total fat content of the samples.
 The total ash content of each sample was measured using Pearson’s
method (Ronald & Ronald, 1991). This method involves oxidation of
all organic matter by incineration in a furnace at a specified
temperature (5500C) for about 5 h.
 Calcium, potassium and sodium were determined by using Flame
Photometry (AOAC, 2000).
 Body fat of three given deep-sea fish samples was extracted using
chloroform-methanol mixture (Bligh and Dyer method).
 Fatty acids were analysed according to the method of AOAC (1980)
using gas liquid chromatography (Varian CP 3800, USA).

13.  Three grams of sample was weighed in to 100 ml teflon
vials and digested overnight with 7ml of pure nitric acid
(AR grade, specific gravity: 1.38, Qualigens, India) and 3
ml of hydrogen peroxide in a microwave digester (Ethos
plus High Performance Microwave Labstation, Milestone,
USA).
 The microwave parameters were 700 W power for 1 h
(40 min heating and 20 min ventilation).
 The digested contents were transferred to acid washed
polypropylene bottles and made up to 100 ml with double
distilled water and subjected to various metal analyses in
Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer (GBC 932AA,
GBC Scientific Instruments, Italy) following the AOAC
method (AOAC, 2000).

14. FIG 1. PERCENTAGE OF SATURATED AND UNSATURATED FATTY
ACIDS
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
Psenopsis Cynea Bembrops caudimacula Cubiceps bextri
37.11
30.88
42.02
35.07
18.66
26.45
27.81
50.47
31.53 SFA
MUFA
PUFA

15.  The fatty acid profile of the three deep-sea fishes was shown
in table 5. Hexadecanoic acid (C16:0) was the most
prominent saturated fatty acid in the given three samples viz.,
P. Cynea (22.69%), B. caudimacula (19.20%) and C. bextri
(26.26%).
 Octadec-9-enoic acid – (C18:1) was the dominant MUFA in P.
Cynea (27.71%), B. caudimacula (10.40%) and C. bextri
(22.22%).
 Docosa-4,7,10,13,16,19-hexaenoic acid (DHA) - C22:6 was
the most significant PUFA in P. Cynea (16.57%) and C. bextri
(20.77%) followed by eicosa-5,8,11,14,17-pentaenoic acid
EPA (5.04% and 4.07 %), whereas in B. caudimacula and
DHA was most significant (32.34 %) followed by eicosa-
5,8,11,14-tetraenoic acid ETA (8.69%).
 The three deep-sea fishes were found to be a good source of
DHA.

16. APPLICATIONS
 The main health benefits of seafood are attributed to the
polyunsaturated fatty acid content in marine lipids.
 The most important among PUFA are Eicosapentanoic acid (EPA)
and Docosahexanoic acid (DHA).
 Although the rate of denovo synthesis is very low by fish, they
accumulate EPA and DHA by consuming phytoplankton rich in
these fatty acids.
 The total amount of EPA and DHA in cultured fresh water fish which
are generally fed vegetable oil based diets is negligible while
marine fish contain up to 25 % out of total fatty acids.
 Consumption of EPA and DHA are linked to improvement in
cardiovascular functions, immunity, fetal development, cognitive
function, and inflammatory disorders. Hence, consumption of
marine lipids has long term health benefits.

17.  Nutritional studies, Biochemical analysis and residual
contaminants of some potential demersal resources are of
paramount importance in the present context of diversification of
fishing effort from the coastal waters to the deeper waters.
 The output from the project will be in the form of precise
knowledge on the magnitude and abundance of new fishery
resources from continental slope.
 Demersal fish feed in deep water or on the seabed. Their meat
tends to be white and relatively low in fats.
 Nutritionally, the demersal group provides mainly protein.
Demersal fish in general do not have a lot of lipid in their flesh,
generally lipid stores are found in the liver.
 The high levels of lipid found in the liver of the Gadidae family
(including cod, coley and haddock) is exploited to produce cod liver
oil, a rich source of the Omega 3 long chain polyunsaturates as
well as vitamins A and D.

18. RELEVANCE TO INDIAN CONTEXT
 Seafood is significant in human nutrition because of its unique nutritive value related to
the presence of proteins, fats, vitamins and minerals.
 At present, India is the second largest producer of fish in the world. India holds the second
position in aquaculture as well as inland capture fisheries.
 As the demand for fish is continuously increasing, making the required protein available to
the existing population is a challenge on its own. With an increasing population, the effort
exerted to catch more fish is also increasing in the capture sector.
 On reviewing the fleet in Indian waters it is the most of the crafts used are of 40 to 50
footer, having the capability of trawling only upto 200m in coastal waters of Indian EEZ.
 The catch in coastal waters has already reached sustainable level beyond which there
may be depletion of resource in inshore areas (Vivekanandan, et al., 2003).
 Hence, recently more importance has been given for exploring deep sea resources.
 Several exploratory surveys conducted along the deep waters of both the Indian coasts
indicated that like coastal fisheries, deep sea fisheries can also be of much commercial
and economical value.

19.  In India, deep-sea fisheries sector is not well developed probably due
to lack of awareness among fisher folk, poor governmental support
together with short fall of expertise.
 The current level of commercial exploitation of deep-sea resources is
limited only to deep-sea shrimps and deep-sea sharks
(Vivekanandan, E, 2011).
 However, unfamiliar appearance and rapid discoloration due to
melanosis made less market preference for these species.
 It is essential to assess the nutritive value of these resources as many
of them are thrown back to the sea because of the non availability of
information pertaining to its biochemical composition.
 Information about composition of deep-sea edible part might raise
their value as table food. Proximate composition of few fin fish species
from North Atlantic (Hege et al., 2005; Synnes et al., 2007), eastern
North Pacific (Drazen, 2007) has been reported. No literature is
available for either fin fish or shell fish from deep waters off the Indian
EEZ.

20. THANK YOU
FOR YOUR KIND ATTENTION