Isolation of fatty acid from sea cucumber, Stichopus sp.

Abstract

This study was conducted at Bidong Island, Terengganu. Sea cucumber has emerged world widely as an important economic commodity due to their significance as nutritional supplement product, medicine and also food. Scientific study was done to prove those importances of sea cucumber by studying fatty acids contain in the body wall of Stichopus sp. The lipids from the fresh sea cucumber were obtained by the solvent extraction and the fatty acids methyl ester (FAME) was obtained from onestep method. There are four different extractions in one-step method, that were hexane extract, chloroform extract, ethyl acetate extract and dry sample of the sea cucumber. The concentration and percentage of fatty acids obtain were compared with the four extractions. The result shown that hexane extract contain high concentration and number of fatty acids from the isolation of the sea cucumber. Stichopus sp. contains high concentration of saturated fatty acids (SAFA) and least of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUF A). The most dominant fatty acids found from Stichopus sp. were Palmitic acid (Cl6:0), Stearic acid (Cl8:0), Palmitoleic (Cl6:l n9c), Erucic acid (Cl8:ln9t), cis-11-Eicosenoic acid (C20: 1 n 11 c ), Arachidonic (AA, C20:4n6) and cis- 5,8, 11, 14, 17-Eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA, C20:5n3).