MOLECULAR-CLONING OF 2 CDNAS FROM THE HEAD OF THE NURSE HONEY-BEE (APIS-MELLIFERA L) FOR CODING RELATED PROTEINS OF ROYAL JELLY

Two cDNA clones designated pRJP57-1 and pRJP57-2 which code for related polypeptides of major royal jelly protein were identified from the lambdaUni-ZAP XR library of nurse honey bee head cDNA. The nucleotide sequences of the cDNA inserts show a 70.2% identity. From the open reading frames of pRJP57-1 and pRJP57-2 the amino acid sequences for polypeptides of 467 and 464 amino acid residues were derived, showing an identity of 56.6%. No significant homology with hitherto known proteins was observed. Both proteins contain N-glycosylation sites, phosphorylation sites for three types of protein kinases and almost identical signal peptides. Northern analysis showed that total mRNA contains a high proportion of RJP57-1 and RJP57-2 mRNAs (8% and 2% respectively).