A Molecule In Bees' Royal Jelly Promotes Wound Healing

❝Despite this risk, royal jelly traditionally has been used to aid wound healing. So a team of scientists from Italy and Slovakia determined why royal jelly has this property.

First, they separated royal jelly into various fractions in order to isolate the compounds that make it up. They tested the fractions on cells in vitro, and they discovered that some of the fractions had a strong ability to promote healing in cell cultures that had been mechanically scratched. The team scrutinized these fractions and identified the molecule responsible: a small protein (i.e., a peptide) called defensin-1.

After identifying the protein, the researchers cloned and expressed the gene responsible for encoding bee defensin-1. This allowed them to purify the defensin-1 peptide. Then, they compared the ability of royal jelly and pure defensin-1 to heal wounds on rats.❞

Tags: royal jelly + healing + defensin-1