| China has now been successful in selecting the highest production royal jelly (RJ) bee (A. m. ligustica) in the world, which is selected from Italian bees (A. m. ligustica). This bee can produce 10 kg of RJ a colony a year. China now produces about 2000 tonnes of RJ each year, accounting for more than 90 per cent of the world's total output. This is attributed to the Chinese method of RJ production technology led by high RJ producing bees, thus making RJ production as much as 10 times higher than a decade ago. China is the world leader in this field. To compare the characterization of the proteome between the two bees during the worker larval developmental process, 2-DE, MAILDI-TOF/MS, MAILDI-TOF-TOF/MS, MASCOT search engine and pathway studio software were employed.The results showed that significant higher numbers of total proteins (284) were detected in larvae of high royal jelly producing bees (jelly bee) than those of Italian bees (246) on 2-day-old larvae. Among them, 218 proteins were presented on both of the strains bee larvae, whereas 46 proteins were specific to larvae of Jelly bees, and 28 proteins were exclusive to Italian larvae. However, on the fourth day, a significant higher number of total proteins (315) were detected in larvae of Jelly bees than those of Italian bees (278), 240 proteins resolved to both bees' larvae, and 65 proteins were specific to Jelly bees and 38 proteins to Italian bees. Until the sixth day, also a significant higher number of total proteins (244) were detected in larvae of Jelly bees than those of Italian bees (211), 187 proteins were constantly expressed in two bees larvae, whereas 37 and 24 proteins are unique to Jelly bees and Italian larvae, respectively. We tentatively concluded that the metabolic rate and gene expression of Jelly bees larvae is higher than those of Italian bees-based proteins detected as total proteins and proteins specific to each stage of two strains of bee larvae. Proteins constantly expressed on 3 stages of larval development with some significant differences between two bees strains, and proteins unique to each stage expressed differences in term of quality and quantity, indicating that larval development need house keeping and specific proteins to regulate its growth at different development phage, but the expression mold is different between two strains of larval development.Moreover, we have successfully identified 101, 97, 71 proteins on day 2,day 4, day 6, which were classified into eight categories according to their function, e.g. metabolism (23%), antioxidant system (9.8%), nutrition (14.8%), folding proteins (15.6%), development (9.3%), regulation of transcription & translation (4.1%), skeleton (1.6%) and exogenous proteins (23%). Of all these 134 proteins, 57 proteins expressed significantly on different larval stages (P < 0.05), 16 of which are carried out to verification by real time PCR, and the expression volume of 7 proteins are in accordance with ones in level of mRNA. 24 proteins are detected as "node proteins" in biological pathways, which were HSP 60, imaginal disc growth factor 4, heat shock 70 kDa protein 1 beta, translation elongation factor 1-gamma, enolase, ATP synthase beta subunit, guanine nucleotide-binding protein subunit beta-like protein, lethal(2)37Cc, protein disulfide-isomerase, triose phosphate isomerase, aldehyde reductase, transketolase, Hsp cognate 3, bellwether, thioredoxin peroxidase 1, translationally controlled tumor protein, fatty acid binding protein, aldolase, leonardo, elongation factor 1-alpha F2, HSP cognate 5,HSP 8. These indicate that varities of proteins are participate in the process of the larval development by switching on/ or off gene expression sequentially, while the high energy matebolism and nutrition storage the most striking feature of the larvae development. The key node proteins will provide us the target proteins for future nolecular monapulation. |
