Jelleine

Jelleine is a family of peptides, isolated from the royal jelly of Apis mellifera iberiensis. a subspecies of honey bee. The new family has potential, to be used in the development of new drugs.

Discovery
Jelleines were first isolated in 2004, by the research group of Professor Mario Sergio Palma, at São Paulo State University, Brazil. First, he collected the royal jelly of a group of honey bee larvae and purified the results by reverse phase, high-performance liquid chromatography. These pieces of royal jelly then showed antimicrobial activity against different bacteria. So far 4 peptides have been found in this family, each one containing the carboxamide C-terminal.

Health benefits
Fungal spores lead to respiratory disease in more than 10 million people. Compared to current antifungal agents, Jelleine has the potential to be a less toxic and overall improved agent. So far Jelleine-I has been to work against Candida albicans,  C. tropicalis, C. parapsilosis, and C. glabrata. Jelleine-I causes damage that promotes microbial lysis, in addition, it has been shown to stimulate the formation of reactive oxygen species which improve its defence against Candida. In a test Kunming mice were infected with C. Albicans, one hour after infection they were given different doses of jelleine-I over a period of 7 days. At the end of the experiment. The antifungal effect of Jelleine-I kept 60% of its group alive, while a separate group given Fluconazole only kept 40% alive and the untreated control group had a 100% mortality rate.

Jelleine also has an antiparasitic ability against pathogens such as Leishmania. Most drugs administered are both toxic and prone to side effects. Jelleine-I has low anti-leishmania activity, being able to stop promastigotes but having no effect on the amastigotes.

Jelleine-I and its halogenated analogues show potential to be used as an immunologic adjuvant in the treatment of colorectal cancer. These peptides inhibit Fusobacterium nucleatum, an anaerobic bacterium of the oral microbiota that is highly active in the altered microecology of the gut and is closely associated with the initiation and progression of CRC.