“…Initially it was thought that the presence of PO in integument was due to its transportation from the hemolymph, as proposed by Ashida and Brey (1995), and Asano and Ashida (2001a, b) in their studies on the cuticular PO from B. mori. However, the demonstrated de novo synthesis of the 70 kDa protein reactive to anti-PO in incubations of honey bee integuments strongly suggested that honey bee epidermis synthesizes a genuine PO of molecular mass and immunological properties identical to that of hemolymph (Colonello et al, 2003). These data are now reinforced by the demonstrated presence of proPO transcripts in integument (this paper), showing that the epidermis is actively involved in the proenzyme synthesis, although could also be the repository of ProPO synthesized in hemocytes.…”