4^th European Biopharma Congress

Royal jelly (RJ) has been widely used in traditional consumables and in skin creams and ointments for health promotion. RJ is rich

in bioactive constituents such as jelleines, 10-hydroxy-2-decenoic acid, royalisin as well as the major royal jelly proteins (MRJPs),

all of which have shown antimicrobial effect in vitro. However, the characterization of RJ is far from complete, and the development

of new characterization techniques is allowing the discovery of new compounds. Many new bioactive peptides have been identified

using enzymatic hydrolysis as a tool. Enzymatic hydrolysis of RJ has verified the presence of peptides with anti-oxidant and antihypertensive

activity. In the current work, using bioassay guided fractionation of RJ enzymatic digests; a total of 42 peptides were

identified. The peptides, all belonging to the Apis mellifera genome, were identified using a combination of mass spectrometry

and bioinformatics tools. Bioassay guided isolation led to the isolation and structure elucidation of three peptides with promising

antimicrobial activity. These finding support the use of RJ as food preservative and its potential application as antibiotic.