Bee Venom and its Potential to Treat Cancer
Bee venom therapy (BVT) is a biotoxin or api-toxin synthesized and secreted from the venom gland located in the abdominal cavity. It is a very complex mixture of natural products removed from honey bee which contains various pharmaceutical properties, such as several biologically active peptides, including melittin (a major component of bee venom apamin, mast cell degranulating peptide, and enzymes: phospholipase A2, and hyaluronidase). As well as non-peptide components, such as, dopamine, histamine, and norepinephrine. Some of these peptides and non-peptides There are (1,2) exhibit anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and anti-apoptosis properties. three forms of BVT: live bee sting, bee venom injection and bee venom acupuncture (BVA).
Other
Background: Bee venom therapy (BVT) is a biotoxin, using bee products like honey, pollen, and bee venom to prevent or cure illness and enhance healing. It also helps to treat many diseases like arthritis, back pain, skin diseases, multiple sclerosis and recently have been found to have anticancer activities in treating tumors, including liver, lung, kidney, prostate, bladder, mammary cancer cells and leukemia cells.are Objectives: The aim of this report is to figure the major components, potential mechanisms and side effect of BVT in treating cancer cells. Results: BVT significantly inhibited proliferation MDA-MB-231 cells in which the targets of BV peptides are melittin and phospholipase A2 (PLA2). bee venom caused concentration-dependent growth inhibition in K1735M2 cells, moreover, bee venom inhibited primary tumor growth of B16 melanoma cells on the 6 mice after intraperitoneal injection. Conclusion: BVT against cancer have shown significant efficacy of inducing apoptosis, necrosis, mitochondrial disruption blocking of angiogenesis, cell cycle arrest and inhibition of cancer cell metastasis and invasion. Although, bee venom has a lot of therapeutic benefits, however, as any treatment it has many side effects such as local itching, swelling and anaphylactic shock so it must be used with a great caution.
