Evaluation of the fillet quality of wild-caught white sea bream (Diplodus sargus L.) and brown meagre (Sciaena umbra L.) captured from the Aegean Sea

Wild white sea bream (Diplodus sargus) and brown meagre (Sciaena umbra) were caught from the Aegean Sea (Greece), and studied for their proximate, fatty acid and amino acid composition to evaluate their nutritional value for human consumption and their potential as candidate fish species for Mediterranean aquaculture diversification. Both species exhibited very low muscle fat, ranging at 1%. White sea bream was found to have higher muscle cicosapentaenoic (EPA) and docohexaenoic (DHA) contents and total n-3 fatty acids than brown meagre. A superiority of white sea bream with respect to thrombogenicity was found, with higher atherogenic (0.679) and thrombogenic indices (0.377) compared to the respective values for brown meagre (0.610 and 0.579). Both studied species exhibited high-quality protein. with a higher essential to non-essential amino acid (EAA/NEAA) rate for white sea bream, 0.764 vs 0.704, respectively. The individual to total essential amino acids rates of lysine and leucine were the highest ones for both studied species, while no significant differences were observed among them.