The Anti-aging Effect Of Royal Jelly Component On Honeybee

Honeybee is a social insect consisting of three castes. In this project, research was done to study the effect of nutrition (injurant) on the lifespan of honeybee. With relative short lifetime, Cage worker bees, also called Apis mellifera was chosen. No previous research in this topic has been done yet. Royal jelly, a nutritive production secreted by the yong worker bees for feeding queen, is rich in proteins, carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals. Due to its various biological and pharmacological effects, royal jelly is widely used as a healthy food supplement by humans. Royal jelly contains a life extension component, which is proved by lifespan experiments of nematodes and fruit flies. In this research, the survival rate of caged worker bees of Apis cerana and Apis mellifera were compared to study the feasibility and otherness of experimental model establishment. The anti-aging effects and the effective constituents of royal jelly were tested. The results were as follows:(1) Separation of royal jelly ingredients:The water solutionable proteins of royal jelly were separated by a solution with phosphate buffer and centrifugation. RJP30 and RJP60 were separated by ammonium sulfate precipitation, dialysis and freeze-drying. With yields of 0.95% and 10.83% respectively. The crude protein was obtained through the process of dissolution with phosphate buffer solution, centrifugation, and dialysis with Tris-Hcl solution (yield was 11.07%). Ethanol extract of royal jelly (EERJ) was extracted with 95% ethanol, and then was dried with yield of 9.78% for experiment.(2) Model Construction:Caged worker bees of the two species were raised with the same feed in incubators at 35℃ and 50% relative humidity. The survival rates of the bees were compared. Results show that the mortality of worker bees of Apis cerana is extremely low during the experiment time. The worker bees of Apis mellifera have significant longer lifetime than that of Apis mellifera, and would prolong the experiment cycle. Therefore, Apis cerana worker bee would not be a suitable experiment subject in this study.(3) Anti-aging effect of royal jelly:Cage worker bees, Apis mellifera, were used as experiment subject to study the anti-aging effect of royal jelly. Royal jelly solutions were prepared by dissolving different doses of royal jelly in 50% sucrose solutions. The two control groups were fed with 50% sucrose solution and bovine serum albumin dissolved in 50% sucrose solution respectively. The lifespan of worker bees of different groups were observed. Experimental results show, during the first 25 days, the survival rate of group fed with 12% royal jelly is higher than that of 4% royal jelly group. And the survival rate of 8% royal jelly group and 4% group of royal jelly group are the same. After 25 days the group of worker bees fed with 4% royal jelly has the highest survival rate and the lowest royal jelly consumption rate comparing with other groups. This result suggests that the optimum dose of royal jelly for prolonging the lifetime of worker bees would be 4%.(4) Anti-aging effect of royal jelly components:RJCP, RJP30 and RJP60 are components separated from royal jelly. The solutions for three groups of caged worker bees were prepared by dissolving RJCP, RJP30, RJP60. and ethanol extract of royal jelly respectively in 50% sucrose solution. Experimental results show that RJP60 can effectively extend the lifespan of worker bees.In royal jelly, there were many kinds of active substances except protein. Bee pollen, which is called as the "mini-nutritional Library", also contains very comprehensive nutrition. In this study, four kinds of common bee pollen were chosen as nutrition for control groups to study the anti-aging effect of royal jelly. Experimental results show that royal jelly can extend the lifetime of worker bees, which is not contributed to the overall nutrition. So, royal jelly may contain a special life extension constitute.However, electrophoresis results showed RJP60 was a mixture, within which one or more components may play major role in the lifetime extending effects of royal jelly. The effective constitution is still under research.