The role of the major royal jelly proteins for caste differentiation in the honeybee Apis mellifera]
Final Report Abstract
We could show that Apis-mrjps went through many evolutionary transformations including pseudogenization of specific mrjps in some Apis species. We developed a purification protocol for oligoMRJP1, monoMRJP1 and MRJP2 to functionally study these proteins. During in vitro larvae experiments, we could prove the claim to be wrong that monoMRJP1 during feeding serves as determinator for honey bee queens. However, oligoMRJP1 holds a special role as it polymerizes pH-dependently into fibrillary structures determining thereby royal jelly viscosity. As queen larvae of honey bees are raised in specially designed vertical cells, royal jelly viscosity is crucial for queen rearing as the royal jelly adheres the queen larvae to the cell ceiling and holds them in the cell. In addition, the protein has also antibacterial activity protecting the growing larvae from diseases.
Publications
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(2016) Royalactin is not a royal making of a queen. Nature 537(7621): E10 - E12
A Buttstedt, CH Ihling, M Pietzsch, RFA Moritz
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(2017) Comparative analyses of the major royal jelly protein gene cluster in three Apis species with long amplicon sequencing. DNA Research 24(3): 279 - 287
S Helbing, HMG Lattorff, RFA Moritz, A Buttstedt
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(2017) Food to some, poison to others - honeybee royal jelly and its growth inhibiting effect on European Foulbrood bacteria. MicrobiologyOpen 6(1): e00397
TV Vezeteu, O Bobiş, RFA Moritz, A Buttstedt
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(2018) How honey bees defy gravity with royal jelly to raise queens. Current Biology 28(7): 1095 - 1100
A Buttstedt, CI Mureşan, H Lilie, G Hause, CH Ihling, S-H Schulze, M Pietzsch, RFA Moritz
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(2018) The fate of major royal jelly proteins during proteolytic digestion in the human gastrointestinal tract. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry 66(16):4164 - 4170
CI Mureşan, A Schierhorn, A Buttstedt
