Description | The major royal jelly proteins (MRJPs) comprise 12.5% of the mass, and 82-90% of the protein content [ ], of honeybee (Apis mellifera) royal jelly. Royal jelly is a substance secreted by the cephalic glands of nurse bees [] and it is used to trigger development of a queen bee from a bee larva. The biological function of the MRJPs is unknown, but they are believed to play a major role in nutrition due to their high essential amino acid content []. Two royal jelly proteins, MRJP3 and MRJP5, contain a tandem repeat that results from a high genetic variability. This polymorphism may be useful for genotyping individual bees [].This family also includes related proteins such as protein yellow-f and yellow-f2 from Drosophila, which are dopachrome-conversion enzymes responsible for catalysing the conversion of dopachrome into 5,6-dihydroxyindole in the melanization pathway [ , [ ]. This family of yellow-like proteins has only been identified within insects and a number of bacterial species []. | Name | Major royal jelly protein/protein yellow |
Short Name | Royal_jelly/protein_yellow | Type | Family |