UPLC-MS/MS Analysis of Naturally Derived Apis mellifera Products and Their Promising Effects against Cadmium-Induced Adverse Effects in Female Rats

Abstract

Honeybee products arouse interest in society due to their natural origin and range of important biological properties. Propolis (P) and royal jelly (RJ) attract scientists’ attention because they exhibit antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-bacterial, anti-tumor, and immunomodulatory abilities. In this study, we tested whether P and RJ could mitigate the adverse effects of cadmium (Cd) exposure, with particular emphasis on the reproductive function in female rats. In this line, one week of pretreatment was established. Six experimental groups were created, including (i) the control group (without any supplementation), (ii) the Cd group (receiving CdCl2 in a dose of 4.5 mg/kg/day), (iii) the P group (50 mg of P/kg/day), (iv) RJ group (200 mg of RJ/kg/day), (v) P + Cd group (rats pretreated with P and then treated with P and Cd simultaneously), (vi) RJ + Cd group (animals pretreated with RJ before receiving CdCl2 simultaneously with RJ). Cd treatment of rats adversely affected a number of measured parameters, including body weight, ovarian structure and ultrastructure, oxidative stress parameters, increased ovarian Cd content and prolonged the estrous cycle. Pretreatment and then cotreatment with P or RJ and Cd alleviated the adverse effects of Cd, transferring the clusters in the PCA analysis chart toward the control group. However, clusters for cotreated groups were still distinctly separated from the control and P, or RJ alone treated groups. Most likely, investigated honeybee products can alter Cd absorption in the gut and/or increase its excretion through the kidneys and/or mitigate oxidative stress by various components. Undoubtedly, pretreatment with P or RJ can effectively prepare the organism to overcome harmful insults. Although the chemical composition of RJ and P is relatively well known, focusing on proportion, duration, and scheme of treatment, as well as the effects of particular components, may provide interesting data in the future. In the era of returning to natural products, both P and RJ seem valuable materials for further consideration as anti-infertility agents.

Exploring the Chemical Constituents and Nutritive Potential of Bee Drone (Apilarnil): Emphasis on Antioxidant Properties

“…The ProteoWizard suite's MS Convert was employed to transform raw data files into the mzXML format. The online technique of Global Natural Products Social Molecular Networking (GNPS) was used to establish molecular networking, with a precursor mass tolerance of 2.0 Da, the fragment ion mass tolerance set to 0.5 Da, and a cosine score of 0.7 [35] . Cytoscape 3.5.1 (https://cytoscape.org/, access on November 12, 2023) was used to display the spectral networks.…”

“…The online technique of Global Natural Products Social Molecular Networking (GNPS) was used to establish molecular networking, with a precursor mass tolerance of 2.0 Da, the fragment ion mass tolerance set to 0.5 Da, and a cosine score of 0.7. [35] Cytoscape 3.5.1 (https://cytoscape.org, access on November 12, 2023) was used to display the spectral networks. The databases Sci-Finder, PubMed, and Google Scholar were utilized to verify the metabolites, as well as the website for the Dictionary of Natural Products.…”

Unravelling the potential of insects for medicinal purposes – A comprehensive review

“…The beneficial properties include antioxidant, antibacterial, antifungal, and hepatoprotective [ 241 , 249 ]. A recent study by Amr et al [ 250 ] on female rats showed that boneybee products had the potential to reduce oxidative stress, increase cadmium (Cd) excretion via the kidneys, and modify intestinal absorption of the metal.…”

Sidr Honeys Physical and Chemical Characterization, a Comprehensive Approach through LC-MS/MS, NMR, and GC-MS Analysis

“…Additionally, MSConvert from the ProteoWizard suite (https://proteowizard.sourceforge.io/ download.html; accessed on 25 December 2022) was used to convert the raw data files to mzXML format. The molecular network was created using the global natural products social molecular networking (GNPS) online workflow [42,49]. The spectra from the network were then verified against GNPS's spectral libraries and literature data.…”

“…The purpose of this research was to identify Sidr honey samples from Egypt and Saudi Arabia based on physicochemical qualities utilizing modern techniques, i.e., HPLC, LC-MS/MS, NMR, and SPME-GC-MS as part of our ongoing project, with particular emphasis on honeybees and bee products [35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42].…”