Introduction

As some people know, the most common methods of treating cancer are radiation, chemotherapy, surgery, etc. What majority of people don’t know is that a new possible treatment for cancer could be found buzzing around right outside your home. Our little friends, hard at work making sweet honey used in the kitchen, actually have another purpose that can be utilized in medicine. 

Honey bees, specifically their venom contain a 26-amino acid peptide called melittin (MEL) which has the ability of inducing something called apoptosis, a passive mechanism on cellular membranes causing cells to pop like a bubble and necrosis, a passive mechanism that induces the death of body tissue. This can be combined with carbon nanoparticles as a delivery system due to their ability of “internalization” where cells eat nanoparticles bringing them inside the cell through something called endocytosis. Karolina Daniluk, a researcher at the Warsaw University of Life Sciences and Department of Nanobiotechnology and Experimental Ecology dives into this idea with her team of researchers and explore this phenomenon through testing certain melittin-optimized carbon nanoparticles on MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231 human breast cancer adenocarcinomas. 

Methods

Daniluk et al. uses a multitude of methods to conduct her research some of which being:

• Treatment Groups
  • MEL + Graphene (GN)
  • MEL + nanographene oxide (nGO)
  • MEL + nanodiamond (ND)
  • MEL
• Control Group
  • No nanoparticles or MEL
• Cell morphological analysis – analyzes the structure of the adenocarcinoma cell lines in the treatment groups and control group
• Cell mortality – measuring the viability and cytotoxic effects of MEL and carbon nanoparticles
• Membrane integrity of cells
• Analysis of apoptosis/necrosis 

Results

Some major results Daniluk et al. discovered was cell lines with (MEL) and nanographene oxide (nGO) and graphene (GO) destroyed the cells the greatest morphologically and nGO “reduced metabolic activity of the MDA-MB-231 and MCF-7 below 40%, relative to treatments of only MEL which resulted in small morphological changes. Daniluk et al. also concluded that the nGO-MEL treatment induced apoptotic cell growth to 30% while MEL alone only had a 20% apoptosis rate for MCF-7 breast cancer cells. MEL alone induced 26% necrosis in MCF-7 cell lines and 37% necrosis in MDA-MB-231 cell lines. For the MEL + nGO treatment Daniluk et al. states, “…MEL-nGO complex induced cell death by apoptosis in two cell lines (about 30% for MCF-7; over 23% for MDA-MB-231) and reduced the percentage of necrotic cells by more than half compared to the MEL-treated group.” Moreover, reactive oxygen species (ROS) which causes cell damage due to oxidative damage to cells’ biomolecules which consists of proteins, lipids, and nucleic acids, increased due to the MEL complexes of nGO and GN causing cell death.

Furthermore, the overall implication of this research is that changes in membrane potential are essential in inducing apoptosis in cancer cells and necrosis, apoptosis, and MEL complexes with (nGO and GN) induce stronger toxic effects to breast cancer cells compared to MEL alone. Daniluk et al. notes that “activating apoptosis is the most effective way to treat tumors beyond surgery.” However, she does note that some limitations of this preliminary research is that further research is still needed to validify the exact mechanisms of melittin and nanoparticles. Administration methods of putting this treatment into the body not only affects cancer cells but carbon nanoparticles also targets healthy tissue posing risks to healthy organs and creating limitations for this method of treatment. Moreover, effective doses for human treatment must also be investigated before using this method within medicine.

Discussion

I found this article so interesting because I was amazed to find out that possibly the most effective way of treating cancer is found right outside our homes. I think with further research and development with melittin and carbon nanoparticles, this method of treating cancer could be used within medical practice.

Here are some questions to think about regarding this post:

• What other “untreatable” diseases do you think we could find an effective treatment from outside nature?
• What should we possibly focus on in research to find an effective way of administering this treatment in human bodies?
• Do you think using honey bee venom in medical practice is ethical or should we stick to our current medical treatments for cancer?

Feel free to comment your opinions and questions, and I highly recommend you read this paper if you’re wanting to learn in depth about this topic.

Source

Daniluk, K., Kutwin, M., Grodzik, M., Wierzbicki, M., Strojny, B., Szczepaniak, J., Jaśmina Bałaban, Malwina Sosnowska, A. Chwalibog, Sawosz, E., & Jaworski, S. (2019). Use of Selected Carbon Nanoparticles as Melittin Carriers for MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231 Human Breast Cancer Cells. Materials, 13(1), 90–90. https://doi.org/10.3390/ma13010090