ANALYZING THE MUSCLE PROTEIN PROFILE OF Catla catla RAISED FROM SEWAGE FED AQUACULTURE SYSTEMS OF EAST KOLKATA, WEST BENGAL, INDIA

Aquaculture has potential and effective contribution that can address protein deficiencies in people of developing and under-developed countries. However, cost of feed and water resources are the major challenges in aquaculture. These challenges are uniquely addressed by the technique of using domestic sewage for fish culture in East Kolkata Wetlands since decades. Utilization of this organic waste with the concept of their reuse or recycle through an ecologically balanced system involve mainly aquaculture. As sewage effluents contains complex mixture of organic and inorganic substances, to ensure the quality of fish raised from sewage fed system in the angle of nutritional security, the present study has been carried out to obtain a better understanding about the protein profile of carp (Catla catla) from sewage- fed aquaculture system and it was compared with the same size carp collected from managed aquaculture farms.  Carps from the Nalban sewage-fed aquaculture system from EKW, which is also a Ramsarsite and few nearby rain-fed managed aquaculture ponds were collected for analysis.  

The proteins were analyzed in axial white skeletal muscle of test species by SDS-PAGE to check the protein quality and also to ensure equal loading. For 2-D GE analysis, the first dimension run was performed using a Bio-Rad Protean IEF Cell with 11 cm immobilized pH gradient strips (pH 5-8, Sigma) following standard protocol. A total of 45 individual protein spots were identified from the 2-D gels which represented 23 proteins. Proteins identified in the current study were dominated by proteins which are mainly composed of enzymes such as enolase, pyruvate kinase, and creatine kinase (CK). When the protein profiles of Catla that were caught in sewage fed fish and culture pond were compared, the results showed that both the fishes have similar protein profiles, where each protein band consisted of identical proteins. From the present study it can be concluded that the sewage fed fish can meet the high nutritional demand as well as leads to environmental safeguard. Such model can be replicated elsewhere for sewage management. However, precaution must be taken for periodic monitoring of the fish as well as aquatic ecosystem as the quantity and quality of sewage vary from time to time.