Abstract
Today, interest in functional foods is increasing. Royal jelly, one of the bee products, is among the functional foods. Royal jelly (RJ) is secreted by worker bees at a young age (5-15 days) and enables worker bee larvae to turn into queen bee larvae in the colony, it is also known as caste determinant food . The content of RJ mainly includes water (60 -70%), protein (9-18%), lipid (3-8%), carbohydrate (7-18%), ash (0.8-3%), 10-Hydroxy- 2-Decenoic acid (10-HDA) (> 1.4%), contains small amounts of vitamins, salt and free amino acids. According to current knowledge, the two most important ingredients that give RJ functional properties are 10-HDA and major royal jelly proteins. Major royal jelly proteins (MRJP) constitute 82-90% of the total protein in RJ. MRJP family consists of 10 members. In recent years, many studies have been conducted on MRJP1, which is the first and most abundant in the MRJP family. Studies have shown that the MRJP family generally has longevity, anti-tumor and antioxidant effects, and immunomodulatory effects. In this review, the MRJP family, also called immune proteins in RJ, will be discussed in detail.