Determination of free amino acids in royal jelly, bee pollen and hydrolyzed bee pollen

Among different plants products, apicultural products such as pollen grains are widely used as medicines and dietary supplements due to the presence of essential nutrients like amino acids, proteins, flavonoids and alkaloids. The amino acids in royal jelly (RJ) have a wide range of pharmacological and health-promoting functions in humans. The present study focuses on the determination of free amino acids (FAAs) in royal jelly, bee pollen and hydrolyzed bee pollen. The results obtained show that proline, lysine, aspartic acid, glutamic acid, serine and β-Alanine were major free amino acids (FAAs) in RJ. It was found that eight free amino acids, aspartic acid, glutamic acid, Alanine, proline, tyrosine, methionine, leucine and isoleucine were present in bee pollen. It was found that three free amino acids, aspartic acid, glutamic acid and proline were present in all samples studied. Among all samples, it was observed that bee pollen of hydrolyzed with alcalase had maximum number (22) of free amino acids. Apart from these, certain other amino acids were also present in the royal jelly, bee pollen and hydrolyzed bee pollen samples, which could not be identified from the standard amino acids and were categorized as unknown.