The aim of this study was to compare the relative nutritional benefit of edible Malaysian fishes from the coast of Terengganu in Malaysia, as well as to perform a taxonomical characterization and metal assessment. Discrimination between species was carried out by a morphological and molecular approach by evaluating the total concentrations of metals by ICP-MS analyses and the fatty acids (FA) composition using the GC-MS approach on the fish fillet tissues. The taxonomical studies detected fishes of 11 families and 13 species. The heavy metal assessment showed that all detected elements did not exceed the regulatory limit stated by Malaysian Food Regulations. The proportion of saturated fatty acids (SFA) ranged from 33 to 58.34%, followed by the polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) values from 24 to 51.8%, and the lowest proportion was of monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFA), ranging from 12.7 to 35.9%. The ω-3/ω-6 PUFA and PUFA/SFA ratios were determined in the range 1.1 to 7.4 and 0.35 to 1.6, respectively. The C20:5 ω-3 and C22:6 ω-3 acids were detected at levels comparable to those found in the corresponding species from similar tropical marine ecosystems. The high FA values can be useful biochemical tools for comparing the relative nutritional benefits of these biodiverse and non-toxic edible Malaysian fishes.
Keywords: Malaysian fish; chemical biomarkers; fatty acid profiling; fish identification.