Honey bee venom rapidly destroys aggressive breast cancer cells

Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.September 1, 2020

Using 312 venom and bumblebee venoms from Perth Western Australia, Ireland, and England, Dr. Ciara Duffy of the Harry Perkins Institute of Medicine and the University of Western Australia tested the effects of venom on clinical subtypes of breast cancer. Triple-negative breast cancer with limited treatment options.

Results published in prestigious international journals npj Precision Oncology Bee venom has been shown to rapidly destroy triple-negative breast cancer and HER2-rich breast cancer cells.

Dr. Duffy aims to study the anticancer properties of bee venom and its constituent compound melittin. Breast cancer types cell.

Previously, nobody compared the effects of bee venom or melittin with all the different subtypes of breast cancer and normal cells. We tested honeybee venom from normal breast cells and cells of clinical subtypes of breast cancer: hormone receptor positive, HER2 enriched, and triple negative breast cancer.

Dr. Ciara Duffy, Harry Perkins Institute of Medicine and University of Western Australia

“We tested a very small, positively-charged peptide of the honeybee venom called melittin, which can be synthetically replicated, and found that the synthetic product reflected most of the anticancer effects of honeybee venom.” Said Duffy.

“We found that both bee venom and melittin significantly, selectively, and rapidly reduce the survival of triple-negative breast cancer and HER2-rich breast cancer cells.”

“The venom was very powerful,” Dr. Duffy said.

Certain concentrations of honey bee venom can induce 100% cancer cell death with minimal effect on normal cells.

“We found that melittin can completely destroy cancer cell membranes within 60 minutes.”

Melittin, found in the venom of honeybees, had another significant effect. Within 20 minutes, melittin was able to significantly reduce the cancer cell chemical messages essential for cancer cell growth and division.

“We investigated how honey bee venom and melittin affect cancer signaling pathways, which are chemical messages essential for cancer cell growth and reproduction, and were immediately blocked. I understand.

“Melittin regulates breast cancer cell signaling by suppressing activation of epidermal growth factor receptor, a receptor that is commonly overexpressed in triple-negative breast cancers, and is overexpressed in HER2-rich breasts It suppressed the activation of HER2. Cancer.”

“This is an incredibly exciting observation that melittin, a key component of bee venom, can suppress the growth of deadly breast cancer cells, especially triple-negative breast cancer,” said Peter Klinken, a Western Australia chief scientist. is.

“Importantly, this study demonstrates how melittin interferes with signaling pathways in breast cancer cells to reduce cell replication, another great example of how natural compounds can be used to treat human disease. Will be provided,” he said.

Dr. Duffy can also use melittin in existing chemotherapeutic agents because it can create pores or holes in the breast cancer cell membrane and potentially introduce other therapies into cancer cells to promote cell death. I tested it.

“We found that melittin can be used in combination with small molecules such as docetaxel and chemotherapy to treat a very aggressive type of breast cancer. The combination of melittin and docetaxel is very effective in controlling tumor growth in mice. It was effective.”

Dr. Duffy’s research is based on A / Prof. of the Harry Perkins Institute of Medicine in Perth. It was done as part of a PhD at the Cancer Epigenetics Institute, which is supervised by. Pilar Blanca Fort. “I started by collecting the venom of Perth honeybees, which are some of the healthiest people in the world.

“The bees sleep on carbon dioxide, are placed on ice before the poisonous thorns are pulled from the bee’s abdomen, and the poison was carefully dissected,” she said.

With 20,000 species of bees, Dr. Duffy wanted to compare the effects of Perth’s bee venom to not only bumblebee venom, but to other honeybee populations in Ireland and England.

“We found that European honeybees in Australia, Ireland, and the United Kingdom have nearly the same effect on breast cancer compared to normal cells. However, bumblebee venom cannot induce cell death even at very high concentrations.” was.

One of the first reports on the effects of bee venom was published in Nature in 1950. There, the poison reduced the growth of plant tumors. However, Dr. Duffy said that interest in the effects of bee venom on a variety of cancers has only increased significantly over the past two decades.

In the future, optimal delivery methods for melittin and studies to formally assess toxicity and maximum tolerated doses will be needed.