Every month, I’ll be highlighting breast cancer
research that is going on RIGHT NOW! Harvested from different websites, journals
and podcasts, I’ll translate them into understandable English and share them with
you. Today: Honeybee venom and breast cancer cells…
PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS IS AN INITIAL STUDY! THERE’S NO TREATMENT YET –
AND GETTING STUNG BY A HONEYBEE WILL NOT BE THE PROCEDURE!
“Western Australia's Chief Scientist Professor Peter Klinken said, ‘This
is an incredibly exciting observation that melittin, a major component of
honeybee venom, can suppress the growth of deadly breast cancer cells,
particularly triple-negative breast cancer.’
“‘Significantly, this study demonstrates how melittin interferes with
signalling pathways within breast cancer cells to reduce cell replication. It
provides another wonderful example of where compounds in nature can be used to
treat human diseases,’ he said.”
While it was demonstrated as early as early as 1950 that bee venom had
the capacity to reduce tumors (the initial study was done on plants), it wasn’t
for another 70 years passed that researchers thought to try it on cancer cells.
Also, once the study began, it became clear that it wasn’t just “honeybee
venom”, it was a component of the venom called melittin that seemed to interact
with a cancer cell’s ability to communicate with other cancer cells to greatly
reduce cell replication.
Melittin is the main part of honeybee venom. The REASON a sting hurts
so badly is that melittin and other parts of the venom attack cell walls to burst
them. The resulting cellular fluid leaks out, obviously killing the cell. This
creates an allergic reaction, which is when your body releases a protein that
grabs onto the offending substance, in this case the venom. It can also prevent
cells from reproducing, which is usually by division, which melittin interferes
with.
During the initial testing – which was done with cells in a petri dish,
followed by using mice who have been specially bred to grow tumors that can be
tested. “A specific concentration of honeybee venom can induce 100% cancer cell
death, while having minimal effects on normal cells.” They also discovered that
when using an active molecule found in the venom, the melittin, “…can
completely destroy cancer cell membranes within 60 minutes.”
All of this is exciting – but again, it’s far from a solution. The
cells most susceptible to this treatment are “…triple-negative breast cancer
and HER2-enriched breast cancer cells.”
While this is important, researchers know that there are several types
of breast cancer. Carcinoma in situ is growth of low-grade
cancerous or precancerous cells within particular place, like the mammary duct
without invasion of the surrounding tissue. In contrast, invasive
carcinoma does not confine itself to the initial tissue compartment
and can be found in several places, including nearby lymph nodes; metastatic
breast cancer has spread beyond the breast and lymph nodes and may be in the bones,
lungs, liver, brain, or skin (the five most common forms of metastatic bc).
As well, there are places on the surface of and inside of a breast cancer
cell that can receive different kinds of chemicals that affect how the cell can
act and react. Different cells can get messages based on the kinds of places on
the cell – these places are called “receptors”. They can get messages from estrogen
(ER), progesterone (PR), and HER2. ER+ cancer cells depend on estrogen for
their growth, so they can be treated with drugs to block estrogen. ER positive and
PR positive cancer victims have the best prognosis and make up about 83% of
breast cancer types.
HER2+ breast cancers are generally more aggressive than HER2- breast
cancers. HER2+ cancer cells respond to drugs and can now be effectively treated.
However, cells that don’t have ER, PR or HER2+ are called triple-negative and
are by far the most difficult to treat. They make up less than 5% of all breast
cancers. Honeybee venom CAN treat this kind of breast cancer, and it appears it
can treat it effectively.
At any rate, we will be keeping close eyes on the use of honeybee venom
as a breast cancer treatment.
Resources:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/09/200901093412.htm,
https://cme.dannemiller.com/articles/activity?id=534&f=1,
No comments:
Post a Comment