| dc.description.abstract | Aquaculture is a system that produces organic and inorganic waste, mostly from uneaten feed or animal excreta. Since the 2000s, there has been an increase in the use of vegetable oils in fish feed. These oils contain higher levels of saturated, monounsaturated, and omega-6 fatty acids than marine oils of animal origin, particularly oleic acid (OA; 18:1n-9), linoleic acid (LA; 18:2n-6), and linolenic acid (ALA; 18:3n-3). Invertebrates have metabolic pathways that allow the synthesis of long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) from linoleic acid and its derivatives. The biosynthesis of these PUFA occurs through the action of two enzymes: desaturases, which oxidize two carbons in a chain, forming double bonds, and elongases, which add pairs of carbons to a carbon chain, increasing its length. A recent study points out that crabs that inhabit the surroundings of a salmon farm have higher quantities and OA, LA and ALA compared to those that reside in areas without farms. Cancer pagurus, also known as the edible crab, is a common species along the coast of Norway. This study aimed to answer the following research questions: 'Do edible crabs possess the necessary desaturase and elongase enzymes for PUFA biosynthesis?' and 'Can information from closely related species be utilized to develop a PCR method that is effective in testing for the presence of these enzymes in edible crabs?' To identify the enzymes present in the edible crab, bioinformatics tools such as Taxonomy Browser, Align tool, and Primer-BLAST, as well as the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) and UniProt databases were used. The alignments conducted to evaluate enzyme conservation between species revealed significant similarity for the elongase alignments, indicating that the enzyme remains considerably conserved between species, and low similarity for the desaturase alignments, indicating that the enzyme is poorly conserved. The presence or absence of the proteins in Cancer pagurus was inconclusive. | |