Journal
BIOLOGICAL REVIEWS
Volume 89, Issue 2, Pages 255-269Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1111/brv.12052
Keywords
Apis mellifera; major royal jelly protein; MRJP; caste differentiation; social insect; Hymenoptera; royal jelly; genome organisation; apalbumin; royalactin
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Funding
- project RoBeeTech [POSCCE 206/20.07.2010 SMIS code 618/12460]
- project BEE DOC
- EU [244956 CP-FP]
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In the honeybee, Apis mellifera, the queen larvae are fed with a diet exclusively composed of royal jelly (RJ), a secretion of the hypopharyngeal gland of young worker bees that nurse the brood. Up to 15% of RJ is composed of proteins, the nine most abundant of which have been termed major royal jelly proteins (MRJPs). Although it is widely accepted that RJ somehow determines the fate of a female larva and in spite of considerable research efforts, there are surprisingly few studies that address the biochemical characterisation and functions of these MRJPs. Here we review the research on MRJPs not only in honeybees but in hymenopteran insects in general and provide metadata analyses on genome organisation of mrjp genes, corroborating previous reports that MRJPs have important functions for insect development and not just a nutritional value for developing honeybee larvae.
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