Functional characterization of naturally occurring melittin peptide isoforms in two honey bee species, Apis mellifera and Apis cerana

Melittin, a major peptide component of bee venom, and its conjugates in cancer therapy

“…1) have been shown to exhibit anti-cancer effects, i) MEL derived from BV of Apis mellifera and ii) MEL derived from BV of Apis cerana (MEL-N). MEL from A. mellifera is the most used in cancer research as a pharmacological peptide rendering stronger anti-cancer activities than MEL-N with only one study demonstrating MEL-N cytotoxicity and cell proliferation inhibition in SKOV-3 and PA-1 human ovarian cancer cells [55]. Current available literature involving both in vitro and in vivo studies suggest that MEL affects signal transduction and regulatory pathways leading to multiple cancer death mechanisms including inhibition of proliferation, induction of apoptosis, inhibition of angiogenesis, cell cycle arrest, and inhibition of cancer motility, migration, metastasis and invasion etc.…”

Antibacterial properties and healing effects of Melipona scutellaris honey in MRSA-infected wounds of rats

“…Hydrogen peroxide produced by glucose oxidase is certainly the most important antibacterial factor of honey and several other phytochemicals and immunochemical factors are being evaluated 15 .…”

Paratransgenesis feasibility in the honeybee (Apis mellifera) using Fructobacillus fructosus commensal

“…; Park et al . ) or genetically enhanced probiotics. This process of altering the host's microbiome by introducing a genetically engineered micro‐organism is commonly referred to as paratransgenesis (Hurwitz et al .…”

“…Hence, the goal of this work is to identify commensals consistently represented in the honeybee microbiome that could be cultured and to establish methods to genetically engineer them to promote optimal honeybee health. To enable such endeavour, a logical choice is lactic acid bacteria (LAB) because (i) some are consistently detected in honeybee microbiome and consistent among honeybee species worldwide and references therein); (ii) genetic manipulation of LAB is well established (Berm udez-Humar an et al 2013;Gaspar et al 2013); we hypothesize that having the capacity to genetically manipulate honeybee commensals, the overall colony health can be improved through a variety of strategies including the overproduction of bioactive peptides (Veenstra et al 2012;Park et al 2014) or genetically enhanced probiotics. This process of altering the host's microbiome by introducing a genetically engineered micro-organism is commonly referred to as paratransgenesis (Hurwitz et al 2011), which is a strategy originally developed to control diseases (Durvasula et al 1997).…”