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A Deep Dive Into Fat: Investigating Blubber Lipidomic Fingerprint Of Killer Whales And Humpback Whales In Northern Norway, Pierre Bories, Audun H. Rikardsen, Pim Leonards, Aaron T. Fisk, Sabrina Tartu, Emma F. Vogel, Jenny Bytingsvik, Pierre Blévin

Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research Publications

In cetaceans, blubber is the primary and largest lipid body reservoir. Our current understanding about lipid stores and uses in cetaceans is still limited, and most studies only focused on a single narrow snapshot of the lipidome. We documented an extended lipidomic fingerprint in two cetacean species present in northern Norway during wintertime. We were able to detect 817 molecular lipid species in blubber of killer whales (Orcinus orca) and humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae). The profiles were largely dominated by triradylglycerols in both species and, to a lesser extent, by other constituents including glycerophosphocholines, phosphosphingolipids, glycerophosphoethanolamines, and diradylglycerols. Through a …