Abstract
Bee venom therapy is a treatment modality that may be thousands of years old and involves the application of live bee stings to the patient’s skin or, in more recent years, the injection of bee venom into the skin with a hypodermic needle. Studies have proven the effectiveness of bee venom in treating pathological conditions such as arthritis, pain and cancerous tumors. However, there has not been sufficient review to fully elucidate the cellular mechanisms of the anti-inflammatory effects of bee venom and its components. In this respect, the present study reviews current understanding of the mechanisms of the anti-inflammatory properties of bee venom and its components in the treatment of liver fibrosis, atherosclerosis and skin disease.
Highlights
Bee venom is a natural toxin produced by the honey bee and it has a prime role of defense for the bee colony [1,2,3]
This review focuses on overview of recent research on anti-inflammatory properties of bee venom and its components in liver fibrosis, atherosclerosis and inflammatory skin disease
This study suggested that melittin is a potential agent for the prevention of vascular disorders related to the vascular smooth muscle cell (VSMC) migration [65]
Summary
Bee venom is a natural toxin produced by the honey bee and it has a prime role of defense for the bee colony [1,2,3]. Bee venom possesses various peptides including melittin, apamin, adolapamin and mast cell degranulating peptide [4,5]. The major component of bee venom is melittin, which comprises approximately 50% of the dry weight of bee venom It is a small linear peptide composed of 26 amino acid residues [14]. Apamin is an integral part of bee venom, accounting for about 2%–3% of its dry weight [3] It is a peptide neurotoxin comprising 18 amino acid residues that is tightly cross-linked by the presence of two disulphide bonds [5]. We review possible mechanisms of bee venom for alleviating or preventing the inflammatory diseases
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