A targeted approach for studying the effect of sugar bee feeding on the metabolic profile of Royal Jelly

• Published in: Journal of Chromatography A 2020-04, Vol.1616, p.460783, Article 460783
• Main Authors: Virgiliou, Chistina, Kanelis, Dimitris, Pina, Athanasia, Gika, Helen, Tananaki, Chrysoula, Zotou, Anastasia, Theodoridis, Georgios
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: HILIC-UPLC-MS/MS; Metabolomics; Royal jelly; Sugar bee feeding
• ISSN: 0021-9673
• DOI: 10.1016/j.chroma.2019.460783

•Hydrophilic metabolic profiling of royal jelly samples.•Assessment of the authenticity of royal jelly production.•Detection of markers for royal jelly quality control.•Alteration of royal jelly's metabolic profile from bees under sugar feeding. Royal Jelly (RJ) constitutes one of the most popular beehive products and for this reason the use of inexpensive sweeteners during its production remains an important quality issue. In the present study we report results of metabolic profiling of RJ samples obtained after the application of artificial bee-feeding using different feeding protocols. The hydrophilic content of RJ samples was assessed by applying (HILIC)UPLC-MS/MS. In total 96 crude RJ samples were analysed with the developed method. Multivariate statistical analysis revealed clear differentiation between the RJ samples obtained from control (non-fed) bees and samples obtained after feeding. In total 27 out of 57 detected molecules were statistically found to be significantly altered in the different comparisons. Among them some amino acids (e.g. tryptophan, lysine), amino acid derivatives (pyroglutamic acid), amines (cadaverine, TMAO, etc.), carbohydrates and vitamins were found as potential markers. The results of the study could be further used for the development of an LC-MS based analytical tool for RJ quality control assessment.