Bactericidal Properties of Royal Jelly of the Honeybee*

McCleskey, C. S.; Melampy, R. M.

doi:10.1093/jee/32.4.581

Cited by 37 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…It is most tempting to speculate that these antibiotics play a key role in colonizing the larval midgut (Yue et al, 2008) or even that antibiotic production by P. larvae is a prerequisite for colonizing the gut and that strains expressing more or better suited antibiotics have a growth advantage in the competitive environment of the gut flora. However, larvae are susceptible to infection only during the first 12-36 h after egg hatching (Woodrow and Holst, 1942;Woodrow, 1942) when the larval gut is reported to be a rather sterile environment due to the larval diet, which at this time consists mostly of royal jelly having bactericidal activity (McCleskey and Melampy, 1939;Zander, 1951;Haydak, 1970). This makes it unlikely that antibiotics are needed by P. larvae to establish infection.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Use of suppression subtractive hybridization to identify genetic differences between differentially virulent genotypes of Paenibacillus larvae, the etiological agent of American Foulbrood of honeybees

Fünfhaus

Ashiralieva

Borriss

et al. 2009

Environ Microbiol Rep

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Paenibacillus larvae is the causative agent of American Foulbrood of honeybees, a fatal brood disease not only killing infected larvae but also lethal to infected colonies. Recently four different genotypes of P. larvae (enterobacterial repetitive intergenic consensus I-IV) have been described and it was shown that these genotypes also differ in phenotype, especially in virulence. To unravel the genetic differences between these four genotypes, suppression subtractive hybridization was used. From 106 analysed clones, 92 represented genotype-specific sequences, whereas 14 sequences turned out to be specific only for the particular strain used as tester in the subtraction. Nearly half of the sequences (46%) could only be annotated based on poorly characterized sequences. The remaining sequences corresponded to categories related to metabolism, especially secondary metabolite biosynthesis, transport and catabolism, to information storage and processing, and to cellular processes. In particular, we could show that the P. larvae genome contains genes and/or giant gene clusters coding for antibiotics, and we identified the first P. larvae toxin, a member of the family of adenosine diphosphate-ribosyltransferases.

show abstract

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Use of suppression subtractive hybridization to identify genetic differences between differentially virulent genotypes of Paenibacillus larvae, the etiological agent of American Foulbrood of honeybees

Fünfhaus

Ashiralieva

Borriss

et al. 2009

Environ Microbiol Rep

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The inhibitory activity of RJ against both grampositive and gram-negative bacteria had been demonstrated many years ago by McCleskey & Melampy (1938), but their nature and the chemical composition of this honey bee product were not established for a long time. At the end of the 1950s, the aliphatic 10-hydroxy-2-decenoic acid (10-HDA) was identified as the main component of diethyl ether extracts from RJ (Butenandt & Rembold, 1957;Barker et al, 1959).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This discrepancy is supposed to be related to the differences in antimicrobial assay conditions, namely, the acidity of nutrient medium. According to McCleskey and Melampy (1938), the sterilisation of test cultures required only a few minutes at a natural acidity of RJ (pH 4.6), but required two days at pH 7.0. Blum et al (1959) had observed high bactericidal 10-HDA activity under slightly acidic conditions, but after neutralization, the activity was considerably lower.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Royal Jelly Aliphatic Acids Contribute to Antimicrobial Activity of Honey

Isidorow

Witkowski

Iwaniuk

et al. 2018

Journal of Apicultural Science

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Honey is valued for its therapeutic qualities which are attributed among others to its antibacterial multifactorial properties. However, all the factors that influence these properties have not been identified. The present study is focused on the antibacterial action of fatty acids originating from royal jelly, the larval food of honeybees. Aliphatic C8-C12 acids characteristic of this bee product had previously been identified in more than fifty different samples of honey originating from seven countries and in eleven samples of Polish herbhoney. Experiments were performed to ascertain the influence of acidity on the antimicrobial activity of the acids. In acidic nutrient media all tested aliphatic hydroxyacids and unsaturated dicarboxylic acids demonstrated antibacterial action against different microbes with minimal inhibitory concentrations between 0.048 and 3.125 mM. Our results confirm that part of the antibacterial activity of honey contributes to these compounds of bee origin.

show abstract

“…This huge amount of food stored at optimal temperatures (~30°C) and humidity (~60%) for bacterial and fungal growth provide ideal conditions for the growth of all kinds of pathogens. Given that every larva in the colony gets its share of the RJ pie, it may not be surprising that RJ harbors antibiotic properties against a variety of bacteria (Fujiwara et al., ; Hinglais, Hinglais, Gautherie, & Langlade, ; McCleskey & Melampy, ), though the vast majority of the studies performed are linked to bacteria causing human diseases. When it comes to bee pathogens, amazingly little is known about the effect of RJ on honeybee‐specific pathogens given the scientific and public awareness for global colony losses (Moritz & Erler, ; Potts et al., ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Food to some, poison to others - honeybee royal jelly and its growth inhibiting effect on European Foulbrood bacteria

et al. 2016

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Honeybee colonies (Apis mellifera) serve as attractive hosts for a variety of pathogens providing optimal temperatures, humidity, and an abundance of food. Thus, honeybees have to deal with pathogens throughout their lives and, even as larvae they are affected by severe brood diseases like the European Foulbrood caused by Melissococcus plutonius. Accordingly, it is highly adaptive that larval food jelly contains antibiotic compounds. However, although food jelly is primarily consumed by bee larvae, studies investigating the antibiotic effects of this jelly have largely concentrated on bacterial human diseases. In this study, we show that royal jelly fed to queen larvae and added to the jelly of drone and worker larvae, inhibits not only the growth of European Foulbrood‐associated bacteria but also its causative agent M. plutonius. This effect is shown to be caused by the main protein (major royal jelly protein 1) of royal jelly.

show abstract

Bactericidal Properties of Royal Jelly of the Honeybee*

Cited by 37 publications

References 0 publications

Use of suppression subtractive hybridization to identify genetic differences between differentially virulent genotypes of Paenibacillus larvae, the etiological agent of American Foulbrood of honeybees

Use of suppression subtractive hybridization to identify genetic differences between differentially virulent genotypes of Paenibacillus larvae, the etiological agent of American Foulbrood of honeybees

Royal Jelly Aliphatic Acids Contribute to Antimicrobial Activity of Honey

Food to some, poison to others - honeybee royal jelly and its growth inhibiting effect on European Foulbrood bacteria

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About