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Wax synthesis by an enzyme system from the honey bee

1979; Elsevier BV; Volume: 63; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/0305-0491(79)90245-1

0305-0491

Edward N. Lambremont, Robert L. Wykle,

Meat and Animal Product Quality

1. A cell-free system prepared from the worker honey bee, containing enzymes from active wax glands, is described which readily incorporated a long-chain fatty alcohol, [1-3H]tetracosanol (24:0), into wax esters. About 16% of the label is recovered in the wax ester fraction after 1 hr of incubation at 37°C. 2. ATP, CoA, Mg2+, and a pH of 7.1 are required for maximum activity. The fatty acid component of the wax ester is derived from the endogenous lipids of the enzyme preparation. The wax-synthesizing enzyme is not highly specific for the longer chain fatty alcohols, since hexadecanol (16:0) was also incorporated into wax by the system. The system is highly sensitive to detergents. 3. The findings indicate the monoester wax component of beeswax is biosynthesized by the reaction of a long-chain alcohol, such as tetracosanol, with a fatty acyl-CoA.