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Published VersionCC BY-NC-ND V4.0, Open Access
Journal article
Quality assessment and chemical diversity of Australian propolis from Tetragonula carbonaria and Tetragonula hockingsi stingless bees
Scientific Reports, Vol.15, pp.1-17
2025
PMID: 40410242
Abstract
Stingless bee propolis has gained global attention as a novel source of bioactive compounds with potential applications in food and medicine to promote human health. However, research on Australian stingless bee propolis remains limited as much of propolis is discarded by Australian beekeepers due to a lack of understanding its value. This study aimed to assess and compare the quality and chemical diversity of propolis from two Australian stingless bee species Tetragonula carbonaria and Tetragonula hockingsi across Queensland and New South Wales. Chemical assays revealed that T. hockingsi propolis had significantly higher total phenolic and flavonoid contents than T. carbonaria. Australian stingless bee propolis also showed high phenolic but moderate flavonoid content compared to international propolis sources. The phenolic content displayed geographical dependence, decreasing from northern to southern regions. The analyses of uHPLC-QTOF MS and 1H NMR profiling identified nine distinct propolis types, showcasing diverse chemical composition with the presence of flavan-3-ol, dihydroflavonol, flavanone, tannin, lignan, phenolic acid, cinnamic acid glycoside, chalcone, and alkyl-phenylketone compounds. These findings provide a foundation for future research into the value and therapeutic potential of Australian stingless bee propolis products, contributing to the development of the Australian propolis industry.
Details
- Title
- Quality assessment and chemical diversity of Australian propolis from Tetragonula carbonaria and Tetragonula hockingsi stingless bees
- Authors
- Damon C Woods - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Centre for BioinnovationMalin A Olsson - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, School of Science, Technology and EngineeringTim A HeardHelen M Wallace - Queensland University of TechnologyTrong D Tran (Corresponding Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Centre for Bioinnovation
- Publication details
- Scientific Reports, Vol.15, pp.1-17
- Publisher
- Nature Publishing Group
- Date published
- 2025
- DOI
- 10.1038/s41598-025-03011-w
- ISSN
- 2045-2322
- PMID
- 40410242
- Copyright note
- This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this licence to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.
- Data Availability
- All data generated or analysed during this study are included in this paper and its Supplementary Information file.
- Grant note
- T.D.T. acknowledges the Advance Queensland Industry Research Fellowship (AQIRF033-2023RD6), the Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources (ICG001958), the UniSC Launch Partnership, Native Beeings and the Van Rooyen Group for their financial support. We also acknowledge the Australian Research Council for funding the NMR instrument (ARC LE140100119) and the UniSC GROW for support towards an Agilent uHPLC-QTOF MS system.
- Organisation Unit
- School of Science, Technology and Engineering; Centre for Bioinnovation
- Language
- English
- Record Identifier
- 991131904902621
- Output Type
- Journal article
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