Institute of Apicultural Research, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Science/Key Laboratory of Pollinating Insect Biology, Beijing, PR China.
BMC Genomics. 2009 Dec 31;10:645. doi: 10.1186/1471-2164-10-645.
Hypopharyngeal glands (HG) of honeybee workers play an important role in honeybee nutrition and caste differentiation. Previous research mainly focused on age-dependent morphological, physiological, biochemical and genomic characters of the HG. Here proteomics and biochemical network analysis were used to follow protein changes during the HG development.
A total of 87, 76, 85, 74, 71, and 55 proteins were unambiguously identified on day 1, 3, 6, 12, 15 and 20, respectively. These proteins were major royal jelly proteins (MRJPs), metabolism of carbohydrates, lipids and proteins, cytoskeleton, development regulation, antioxidant, molecule transporter, regulation of transcription/translation, proteins with folding functions. The most interesting is that MRJP's that have been detected in the HG of the newly emerged worker bees. The MRJP's expression is at peak level from 6-12 days, was validated by western blot analysis of MRJP1, 2 and 3. Moreover, 35 key node proteins were found in the biochemical networks of the HG.
HG secretes RJ at peak level within 6-12 days, but the worker bee can secrete royal jelly (RJ) since birth, which is a new finding. Several key node proteins play an important role in the biochemical networks of the developing HG. This provides us some target proteins when genetically manipulating honeybees.
工蜂的下咽腺（HG）在蜜蜂的营养和蜂群分化中起着重要作用。以前的研究主要集中在 HG 的年龄依赖性形态、生理、生化和基因组特征上。在这里，蛋白质组学和生化网络分析被用来跟踪 HG 发育过程中的蛋白质变化。
分别在第 1、3、6、12、15 和 20 天鉴定到 87、76、85、74、71 和 55 个明确的蛋白质。这些蛋白质主要是蜂王浆蛋白（MRJPs）、碳水化合物、脂质和蛋白质代谢、细胞骨架、发育调控、抗氧化、分子转运、转录/翻译调控、具有折叠功能的蛋白质。最有趣的是，在新出现的工蜂的 HG 中检测到了 MRJP。MRJP 的表达水平在第 6-12 天达到峰值，通过 MRJP1、2 和 3 的 Western blot 分析得到了验证。此外，在 HG 的生化网络中发现了 35 个关键节点蛋白。
HG 在 6-12 天内分泌 RJ 的水平达到峰值，但工蜂从出生就可以分泌蜂王浆（RJ），这是一个新的发现。一些关键节点蛋白在发育中的 HG 的生化网络中起着重要作用。这为我们在遗传操纵蜜蜂时提供了一些目标蛋白。
