High-resolution 1H magnetic resonance spectroscopy of whole fish, fillets and extracts of farmed Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) for quality assessment and compositional analyses

This work reports the interpretation of the spectra from high-resolution 1H MR spectroscopy of extracts, muscle, and whole Atlantic salmon, the latter using a MR image localization technique. It was possible to identify single chemical components, such as hypoxanthine, amino acids, anserine, lactate and some fatty acids, in extracts, whole muscle and whole fish. These techniques may have practical applications for i) the selection of live specimens for breeding, ii) the classification of both live specimens and fillets according to their qualitative and quantitative content of lipids and small molecules, which is of relevance for the nutritional value of fish, and iii) authentication analyses of Atlantic salmon.