Atlantic Cetacean Research Center, Institute of Animal Health (IUSA), Veterinary School, University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (ULPGC), Trasmontaña, s/n, 35413, Arucas, Las Palmas, Spain.
Department of Biology and Marine Biology, University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW), Wilmington, NC, 28403, USA.
Sci Rep. 2020 Sep 8;10(1):14752. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-71658-8.
Lipids are biomolecules present in all living organisms that, apart from their physiological functions, can be involved in different pathologies. One of these pathologies is fat embolism, which has been described histologically in the lung of cetaceans in association with ship strikes and with gas and fat embolic syndrome. To assess pathological lung lipid composition, previous knowledge of healthy lung tissue lipid composition is essential; however, these studies are extremely scarce in cetaceans. In the present study we aimed first, to characterize the lipids ordinarily present in the lung tissue of seven cetacean species; and second, to better understand the etiopathogenesis of fat embolism by comparing the lipid composition of lungs positive for fat emboli, and those negative for emboli in Physeter macrocephalus and Ziphius cavirostris (two species in which fat emboli have been described). Results showed that lipid content and lipid classes did not differ among species or diving profiles. In contrast, fatty acid composition was significantly different between species, with C16:0 and C18:1ω9 explaining most of the differences. This baseline knowledge of healthy lung tissue lipid composition will be extremely useful in future studies assessing lung pathologies involving lipids. Concerning fat embolism, non-significant differences could be established between lipid content, lipid classes, and fatty acid composition. However, an unidentified peak was only found in the chromatogram for the two struck whales and merits further investigation.
脂质是存在于所有生物体中的生物分子,除了它们的生理功能外,还可能涉及到不同的病理学。其中一种病理学是脂肪栓塞,它已经在与船只撞击有关的鲸目动物的肺部中被组织学描述,并与气体和脂肪栓塞综合征有关。为了评估肺部病理性脂质组成,了解健康肺组织脂质组成是必不可少的;然而,这些研究在鲸目动物中极为罕见。在本研究中,我们首先旨在描述七种鲸目物种肺组织中通常存在的脂质;其次,通过比较 Physeter macrocephalus 和 Ziphius cavirostris(两种已描述脂肪栓塞的物种)中脂肪栓塞阳性和阴性的肺组织的脂质组成,更好地理解脂肪栓塞的病因发病机制。结果表明,脂质含量和脂质类群在不同物种或潜水剖面之间没有差异。相比之下,脂肪酸组成在物种之间存在显著差异,C16:0 和 C18:1ω9 解释了大部分差异。这种健康肺组织脂质组成的基线知识将在未来涉及脂质的肺部病理学评估中非常有用。关于脂肪栓塞,脂质含量、脂质类群和脂肪酸组成之间没有差异。然而,在两个被撞击的鲸鱼的色谱图中只发现了一个未识别的峰,值得进一步研究。