Abstract
Bee venom has been used for treating various diseases for a long time. However, the bioactive constituents of bee venom and its mechanisms remain poorly understood. In the present study, phospholipase A2 (Bt-PLA2) cDNA was cloned, and a mature form of Bt-PLA2 was purified from bumblebee venom (Bombus terrestris). The differentiation induction and apoptosis induction activities of Bt-PLA2 on chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) K562 cells were also evaluated. Bt-PLA2 cDNA has 540 nucleotides that encode a 180-amino-acid protein. The purified, mature form of Bt-PLA2 was an 18-kDa protein, and it inhibited K562 cell growth, determined by an IC50 value of 29.5ng/μl. Moreover, Bt-PLA2 induced erythroid differentiation of K562 cells in a dose-dependent manner, and this was supplemented with the upregulation of glycophorin A (GPA) mRNA expression. Bt-PLA2-induced apoptosis, analyzed by DAPI staining, was correlated with the result analyzed by AnnexinV-FITC/PI binding. Furthermore, activation of caspase 3 and poly ADP-ribose polymerase (PARP) and inhibition of p-Akt, determined by western blot, further demonstrated that Bt-PLA2 induced apoptosis mainly through the Akt pathway. The parallel induction of erythroblasts differentiation of K562 cells and apoptosis due to Bt-PLA2 treatment demonstrated the potential use of Bt-PLA2 as an anti-leukemia drug lead.
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