Honeybee Silk: A Promising Value-Added Biomaterial with Antioxidant, Antimicrobial, Antihyaluronidase, and Microstructural Characteristics

Bee products with their huge potential are becoming more valuable beyond food industry. Honeybee silk is non-utilized biomaterial in any commercial applications and even burned during the processing of beeswax. Although studies concerning insects silks are commonly on spider and silkworm silks, honeybee silk remains unexplored. Scanning electron microscope and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM–EDX) were used to identify chemical composition via elemental mapping of the native form of honeybee silk. Honeybee silk, in the form of thin layer inside the honeycomb cells, was processed through a series of steps to separate it from beeswax. Protein content was evaluated and revealed a composition of approximately 11.69%, indicating its strong biopolymeric origin. Amino acid analysis of honeybee silk performed by RP-HPLC revealed the presence of both polar and nonpolar amino acids, indicating a well-balanced amino acid profile. Antioxidant, antimicrobial, and anti-hyaluronidase properties of processed honeybee silk were presented. The methanolic extracts of honeybee silk were found to have higher total phenolic content (TPC) and antioxidant activity as assessed by DPPH (2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl) and FRAP (ferric reducing antioxidant power) assays than the aqueous extracts. While no antimicrobial activity was found for aqueous extracts, methanolic honeybee silk extract exhibited antimicrobial activity against Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Bacilluscereus, Staphylococcus epidermidis, and Candida albicans. The hyaluronidase inhibition values (IC50) were found as 0.0094 and 0.0079 g/mL for aqueous and methanolic honeybee silk extracts, respectively. The aforementioned findings indicate that honeybee silk as a promosing value-added product is worthy of attention from pharmaceutical industries and future studies.