Thiaminase Some Common Aquatic - About The NMFS

A UNITED STATESDEPARTMENT OFCOMMERCEPUBLICATIONU.S.DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCENATIONAL OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATIONNATIONAL MARINE FISHERIES SERVICEOccurrence of ThiaminaseinSome Common Aquatic Animalsof the United States and Canada1971SPECIAL SCIENTIFIC REPORT-FISHERIESNa 631

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OFMauriceCOMMERCEH. Stans, SecretaryNATIONAL OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATIONDr.Robert M. White, AdministratorNATIONAL MARINEPhilipFISHERIES SERVICEM. Roedel,DirectorOccurrence of ThiaminaseinSome Common Aquatic Animalsthe United States and CanadaByR. A.GREIGand R. H.Special Scientific ReportSeattle,GNAEDINGER— FisheriesWashingtonJuly 1971No. 631of

CONTENTSPageIntroduction1Explanation of the tables2DiscussionLiterature cited23TABLES1.2.Thiaminase presenceThiaminase presencein freshwater animals4marine animals6inin

Occurrence of ThiaminaseSome Common Aquatic AnimalsStates and Canadainof the UnitedByR. A.GREIGNational Marine Fisheries ServiceTechnological Laboratory, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48107andR. H.GNAEDINGERPet Food Nutritional Research, Ralston-Purina Company,Checkerboard Square, St. Louis, Missouri 63199ABSTRACTTwo tables are presented that survey the presence or absence of thiaminase infreshwater and marine fish and shellfish.INTRODUCTIONThe presence of thiaminase in fish that areraw in rations for animals cancause a dietary deficiency. The disease in minkis commonly called Chastek paralysis (Green,Evans, and Carlson, 1937). Knowledge aboutimportant to animal feeders, particularly mink ranchers, for safety and economicvitallyreasons.routinely usedAlso, scientific researchers at times need toconsider whether or not an aquatic animalinvolved in their research contains thiaminase.For example, in biological research wherethe presence or absence of thiaminase in aquaticanimals is therefore important to mink ranchers and other animal feeders, scientific researchers, commercial fish vendors, and others.fishes are held in aquaria for feeding studiesor other research, the presence of thiaminasein the animals being fed to the fish could possibly cause a vitamin deficiency or other problems that could impede the research (Wolf,1942).Many species of aquatic organisms have beenassayed for thiaminase activity in various laboratories throughout the world. Most of theseassays, however, were made in conjunctionwith specific research programs that were designed to study a particular species native tothe area of the research laboratory. As a result, the data on the occurrence of thiaminaseThiaminaseisanenzyme that destroysthiamine (vitamin Bi) and, like many enzymes,its activity is greatly reduced or destroyed upon heating to moderate temperatures (50 100 C). Thus, mink ranchers, for example,can cook the fish before feeding it to the animalsto avoid a Chastek paralysis problem (Lee,1948; Gnaedinger and Krzeczkowski, 1966).However, mink ranchers generally prefer toavoid cooking the fish because mink show apreference for raw fish and cooking adds tothe operational costs. Knowledge whether fishdo or do not contain thiaminase is thereforein aquaticspecimensisscattered throughoutvarious research papers published overyears.the

Deutsch and Hasler (1943) and Neilands(1947) determined the thiaminase activity ofa great number of freshwater and aquatic animals. A number of important fishes and shellfish, however, were not examined by theseresearchers but were investigated by severalother researchers. The purpose of this report,therefore, is to combine the listings of thiaminase activity in aquatic animals that have appeared in the literature and also some recentunpublished work at this laboratory into acomprehensive list of aquatic animals that havebeen assayed for thiaminase activity.Explanation of the TablesThelist ispresented in two tables:Table1presents the information for freshwater animals, and Table 2 presents the information formarine animals. The animals are listed alphabeticallyby common name. Thescientificnameis also shown for each animal; the names weretaken from the publication (s) cited. The scientific names relating to the unpublished dataof this laboratory are from the list publishedby the American Fisheries Society (1960).The part of the animal that was analyzedfor thiaminase is also shown in the tables.Whether the whole animal or, for example, justthe viscera was analyzed is important; thispoint will be further discussed later. Wherethe source of the animal was given in the original reference, this information is also givenin the tables.DISCUSSIONIn most cases, the whole animal was analyzedfor the data presented in Tables 1 and 2. However, for some of the animals, only the visceraor flesh was analyzed. Thiaminase apparentlyconcentrates in the viscera more than in anyother part of the animal (Lee, 1948). Someresearchers have found thiaminase to be pi-esentin the viscera of some aquatic animals but notin the flesh of that same animal. For example,Neilands (1947) found that viscera of lobstercontained thiaminase, but the muscle did not.In over 30 marine and freshwater animalsstudied by Neilands, however, the lobsterproved the only example of such a relationship.In other experiments by Neilands (1947) andby Stout,servationand Adair (1963), the obwas made that fish (yellow perch,Oldfield,white perch, and hake in these experiments)generally considered to be thiaminase-freecould be found to contain thiaminase activityif the fish was captured at a time when theanimal it fed on was not completely digestedand this animal itself contained thiaminase.These findings are significant for severalreasons:(1)animalslisted inItispossible thatsome of theTables 1 and 2 were found tocontain thiaminase because they were caughtat a time when their stomachs contained undigested, thiaminase-containing feed. Also, theopposite could be true; that is, those specieslisted as not containing thiaminase could attimes be found to contain thiaminase activityif captured with the undigested thiaminasecontaining food in their stomachs.(2) Thefindings could help to explain apparent discrepancies that sometimes occur in regard tothe reported thiaminase activity of a certainspecies. For example, burbot is listed in Table1 as containing thiaminase when the animalcame from the Great Lakes; whereas, burbotdid not contain thiaminase when captured fromRainy Lake, Minn. It is possible that the burbot feeds on thiaminase-containing animals inthe Great Lakes; whereas, the animals available for food in Rainy Lake are thiaminasefree.Another possibility is that the burbotfrom the Great Lakes was captured with undigested (thiaminase-containing) food in itsviscera, and the burbot from Rainy Lake wascaptured with completely digested food in itsviscera.Additional precautions that have to be considered in using the data presented in the tablesare:The data do not indicate which animalshave the greatest concentration of thiaminaseand which have lesser concentrations of theenzyme. In many respects this factor may notbe too important, at least with present lackof knowledge about threshold concentrationsin regard to the ability of thiaminase to impairphysiological activity of thiamine.In otherwords, even a small amount of thiaminase inthe animal could cause concern depending onthe intended use of the animal.Thus, a minkrancher is not likely to feed raw, thiaminasecontaining fish to mink even though it was

shown that thefishcontained a relatively lowthiaminase activity. In this case, themink rancher would cook the fish to be on thesafe side. According to the results of researchby Gnaedinger and Krzeczkowski ( 1966) it appears that fish with various concentrations ofthiaminase activity all have to be heated toabout the same temperature time relationshipto give complete destruction of thiaminase activity.Therefore, a mink rancher probablyshould not give fish with "low" levels of thiaminase a milder heat treatment than fish with"high" levels of thiaminase.Different analytic methods were used by thevarious researchers to obtain the data presented in the tables. That is, the presence orabsence of thiaminase was observed throughvarious chemical methodologies or biologicalfeeding studies; it is possible that one methodof detection could show the presence of thiaminase, whereas another method would showthat the thiaminase was absent in the animal.Generally, the chemical methods for thiaminaseactivity are believed capable of detecting lower levels of thiaminase than the biologicalmethods.Fish. Wildl. Serv., Fish. Ind. Res.2(4): 55-59.level of5.GNAEDINGER, R. H., and R.KRZECZKOWSKI.Heat inactivation of thiaminasewhole fish. Commer. Fish. Rev.28(8): 11-14.GREEN, R. G., C. A. EVANS, and1966.,in6.ysis studies.7.JONES, W.8.LEE,C. F.1948.A9.LEE,3.11.MELNICK,ofAcademic R.63-65.R. H.Thiaminase activity inimproved assay method.fish:U.S.HOCHBERG,andPhysiological availability of theII. The effect of dietaryJ.NovaScotia.Nutr.in aquaticJ. Fish.animalsRes. Bd.ADAIR.A secondary induced thiaminasein mink.Nature 197(4869): 810-811.WOLF, L. D.1942.Fish diet disease of trout. Avitamin deficiency produced by dietscontaining raw fish.N.Y. StateConserv. Dep., Fish. Res. Bull. No. . 7(2): 94-99.F. M., J. E. OLDFIELD, andNewDistribution of a vitamin Bidestructive enzyme in fish.Proc.—STOUT,1963.and A. D.D.,NEILANDS,1947.p.F.,and W. CLEGG.C. F.,thiaminase in fish products.30(2): 81-88.1961-1965.York, 441DEUTSCH, H.Rev.vitamins.G.crobiology.Fish.Technical Note No. 31Weight range, proximate composition and thiaminase content of fishtaken in shallow water trawling innorthern Gulf of Mexico. Commer.Fish. Rev. 17(3): 21-23.of fishesFish as food. 4v. vol. 1.Production, biochemistry, and mi-in fishery products:Commer.1955.B. L.from the United States and Canada.2nd ed.Amer. Fish. Soc. Spec. Publ. 2, 102 p.BORGSTROM,Thiaminasereview.10(4): 7-17.1945.2.G.Fishery resources for animalfood. U.S. Fish Wildl. Serv., Fish.Lean. 501, 22 p.1960.AMERICAN FISHERIES SOCIETY.1960.A list of common and sciennamesparal-Minn. Wildl. Dis. In-173-177.vest. 3:10.tificE. CARLSON.A summary of ChastekW.1937.LITERATURE CITED1.A.