Distribution of Vitamin E in a Few Species of Fish

Abstract

Very little works have been done on the vitamin E contents of fish tissues and practically no data are available on the distribution of vitamin E in every part of fish body.
In the present paper, basing on the combination of two previous methods devised by MORI-NAITÔ and KATSUI-NISHIMOTO, a new method was established for the estimation of vitamin E in fish tissues, as shown in Fig. 1.
The distribution of vitamin E in the body of skipjack, rainbow trout and carp was studied by this method. The results obtained are as follows.
(1) Roughly speaking, vitamin E evenly distributed in every organ or tissue of skipjack, rainbow trout and carp in normal condition (Tables 1-3).
(2) The distribution pattern of vitamin E was quite different from those of vitamins A and D (Fig. 2). This may suggest that in function, vitamin E resembles water-soluble vitamins much more than fat-soluble ones.
(3) The distribution pattern could be changed by feeding rainbow trout with excess vitamin E, and the vitamin was accumulated in the ovary (Table 2).
(4) Carp with nutritional muscular dystrophy showed a different distribution of vitamin E from that of normal fish (Table 3).