How Honeybees Defy Gravity with Royal Jelly to Raise Queens
How Honeybees Defy Gravity with Royal Jelly to Raise Queens
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DOI：
10.1016/j.cub.2018.02.022
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发表时间：
2018-04-02
期刊：
影响因子：
9.2
通讯作者：
Moritz, Robin F. A.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Buttstedt, Anja;Muresan, Carmen I.;Moritz, Robin F. A.
蜜蜂（Apis spp.）包括生殖蜂王和不育工蜂。护士蜜蜂饲料所有幼虫逐步与种姓特定的食物果冻，直到预蛹阶段。只有那些专门喂食大量皇家浆（RJ）的幼虫才能发育成蜂王[1]。RJ是两个专门的头部腺体的复合分泌物：下颌腺，其主要产生脂肪酸[2]，和下咽腺，其贡献蛋白质，主要属于主要的皇家果冻蛋白（MRJP）家族[3]。过去对RJ的研究主要集中在其营养功能上，而忽视了其在幼虫在皇家育雏室中的定位方面的核心作用。而工人饲养在正常的水平细胞的梳子，蜂王细胞是专门建立在正常的梳子区域以外，以适应更大的女王[4，5]。这些细胞沿着梳子的底部自由悬挂，并且垂直定向，向下开口[6]。蜂王幼虫通过其RJ饮食附着在细胞天花板上。因此，RJ的物理性质是成功地将幼虫保留在细胞中的关键。在这里，我们表明，RJ（MRJP1）的主要蛋白质聚合在复杂的另一种蛋白质，apisimin，到长纤维结构，建立的基础上的高粘度的RJ举行女王幼虫RJ表面。
The female sex in honeybees (Apis spp.) comprises a reproductive queen and a sterile worker caste. Nurse bees feed all larvae progressively with a caste-specific food jelly until the prepupal stage. Only those larvae that are exclusively fed a large amount of royal jelly (RJ) develop into queens [1]. RJ is a composite secretion of two specialized head glands: the mandibular glands, which produce mainly fatty acids [2], and the hypopharyngeal glands, which contribute proteins, primarily belonging to the major royal jelly protein (MRJP) family [3]. Past research on RJ has focused on its nutritional function and overlooked its central role with regard to the orientation of the larva in the royal brood cell. Whereas workers are reared in the regular horizontal cells of the comb, the queen cells are specifically built outside of the normal comb area to accommodate for the larger queen [4, 5]. These cells hang freely along the bottom of the comb and are vertically oriented, opening downward [6]. Queen larvae are attached by their RJ diet to the cell ceiling. Thus, the physical properties of RJ are central to successful retention of larvae in the cell. Here, we show that the main protein of RJ (MRJP1) polymerizes in complex with another protein, apisimin, into long fibrous structures that build the basis for the high viscosity of RJ to hold queen larvae on the RJ surface.