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Lipophilic Bioactive Components in Queen Bee Larvae

XU Xiang,GAO Yan-xiang   

  1. 1. College of Food Science and Nutritional Engineering, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100083, China;
    2. Institute of Apicultural Research, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing 100093, China
  • Online:2013-06-25 Published:2013-06-17

Abstract:

Lipids from fresh queen bee larvae were extracted and separated by column chromatography. A comprehensive
analysis of the chemical composition of fatty acids and other lipophilic compounds was carried out. The results showed that
the queen bee larvae lipids were composed of 74.4% triglyceride with palmitic acid (43.16%) and oleic acid (40.70%) as
dominant fatty acids. Other neutral lipids and phospholipids contained a high amount of capric acid. In addition, queen bee
larvae also contained various types of sterol compounds such as 24-methylene cholesterol (57.67%), campesterol (4.76%),
β-sitosterol (16.56%), Δ5-avenasterol (19.45%) and cycloartenol (1.56%). Moreover, queen bee larvae comprised rich
coenzyme Q10 and phospholipids, in which the phosphatidyl ethanolamine content was (1299.65 ± 50.12) mg /100 g lipid.

Key words: queen bee larvae, fatty acid, sterols, phospholipids, coenzyme Q10