Comparison of the major royal jelly protein (mrjp) gene expression patterns between the mushroom body (A) and the hypopharyngeal gland (B) from the same individual measured by real-time quantitative reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction. Standard plasmids were constructed by inserting a fragment of each cDNA into the pT7Blue-2 T-Vector to determine the copy number of mrjp transcripts and the actin transcript. The amount of each mrjp transcript relative to that of actin was calculated, and the relative expression level was further normalized to that of mrjp1. Data are expressed as means ± S.D. (n = 3).