Controlled Study of Application of Bee Products as New Medicine Against Breast and Lung Cancer.

Abstract

Bee venom has special pharmacological activity through its complex protein structure which contains enzymes and peptides. Melittin is the bee venom’s major component constituting about 50% of its content. Recent studies showed that bee venom has a huge impact in the treatment of tumors due to synergistic antitumor effect of bee venom melittin and phospholipase A2. Propolis is a substance produced by bees from the resin collected from trees and act as an anticancer agent. The major antitumor activity of propolis depends on its main components CAPE and chrysin. This study aimed at estimating the anti-cancer potentials of Propolis, Egyptian and Georgian bee venom on breast cancer cell line MCF-7 and Lung cancer cell line A549. The Egyptian bee venom showed higher toxicity on both cells than the Georgian bee venom. After the 24 hr treatment with Egyptian bee venom and Propolis, the results showed significance inhibitory effects on cells proliferation and induced morphological changes. The gene expression level of pro-apoptotic gene as p53 and anti-apoptotic gene as Bcl-2 were examined in both cell lines after 24 hr of treatment. Data recorded revealed that treatment with bee venom and Propolis showed clear anticancer potentials based on the up / down regulation of pro-apoptotic and anti-apoptotic gene.