Abstract

Objective: Chinese mitten crab is a famous aquatic species in eastern Asian region, but their edible parts, particularly hepatopancreas and gonads, generally contain very high levels of lipids that may have negative effects on human health. This study investigated the effects of different edible parts of Chinese mitten crab on the body weight and lip metabolism for Kunming mice.

Method: The mice were fed with diets containing one part of an Chinese mitten crab or the mixture of parts of an Chinese mitten crab for 4 weeks. There were 9 treatments. The triacylglycerol (TG), total cholesterol (TC), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) and low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) were enzymatically determined using commercial kits (purchased from Nanjing Jiancheng Bioengineering Institute, China). The arteriosclerosis index (AI) was calculated by the equation: AI = (TC – HDL-C)/HDL-C. The levels of fatty acid syntheses (FAS), the 3-hydroxy-3-methyl-glutaryl-coenzyme A reductase (HMG-CoA) and lipoprotein lipase (LPL) were measured using commercially available kits according to the manufacturer’s instructions. The significant differences between the groups were further analyzed by Bonferronis’s t-test.

Results: Our results showed that the crab hepatopancreas, gonads and the mixed male crab-edible parts increased blood lipids in some experiment group of mice corresponding to a change in the nutrition-related liver enzymes. It shows that addition of the Chinese mitten crab has an adverse effect on the blood lipid levels in mice. The FFH, FFMI and FMMI groups had significantly higher weight than the FN group (P < 0.05). The crab hepatopancreas, crab gonads and the mixed male crab-edible parts cause an increase in the blood lipid levels. The crab mixture significantly affected the AI value of male and female mice (P < 0.01). The level of FMMI group was significantly higher than the FN group (P < 0.05). Other groups showed no significant difference. The level of the FFMI group was significantly lower than the FN group (P < 0.05), and levels in the MMM and MFMI groups were significantly lower than the MN group (P < 0.05).

Conclusion: It clearly showed that long-term feeding with the Chinese mitten crab has an adverse effect on the blood lipid levels in mice. One the one hand, the weight, liver index and fat index of experimental mice were changed than normal mice. On the other hand, the crab diet affects the level of TC, TG, AI and FASN on increasing. It is suggested that the special diet has affected lip metabolic alteration associated with contents of serum lipids and metabolic enzymes. But according to a certain regular feeding, there would be no adverse effect on mice. On the contrary, it may adjust the blood lipid in mice

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