Anticancer Activity of Indian Stingless Bee Propolis: AnIn VitroStudy

Abstract

Indian stingless bee propolis has a complex chemical nature and is reported to possess various medicinal properties. In the present study, anticancer activity of the ethanolic extract of propolis (EEP) was explored by testing the cytotoxic and apoptotic effect in four different cancer cell lines, namely, MCF-7 (human breast cancer), HT-29 (human colon adenocarcinoma), Caco-2 (human epithelial colorectal adenocarcinoma), and B16F1 (murine melanoma), at different concentrations. Cytotoxicity was evaluated by MTT assay and Trypan blue dye exclusion assay. EEP at a concentration of 250 μg/mL exhibited ≥50% mortality in all cell lines tested (i.e., IC50 value). EEP revealed a concentration and time dependent cytotoxic effect. Apoptosis was estimated by differential staining (ethidium bromide/acridine orange) and TUNEL (deoxynucleotidyl transferase-dUTP nick end labeling) assay. Light microscopy and atomic force microscopy demonstrated morphological features of apoptosis in all the cell lines after treatment with 250 μg/mL EEP for 24 h. Thus, early onset of apoptosis is the reason for anticancer activity of Indian stingless bee propolis. Further, the antioxidant potential of Indian stingless bee propolis was demonstrated to substantiate its anticancer activity.

Turkish propolis supresses MCF-7 cell death induced by homocysteine

“…In control group, cells were treated with just complete media. In Hcy group, cells were exposed to 50 mM Hcy [34] in complete media for 24 h. In cotreatment group, cells were incubated with 50 mM Hcy and 50 mg/ml propolis [35] in complete media for 24 h.…”

Cytotoxic and Nitric Oxide Inhibition Activities of Propolis Extract along with Microencapsulation by Complex Coacervation

“…The same group has also investigated the cytotoxic effect of ethanolic Tunisian propolis extract against cancer cell lines, HT-29 (the intestinal epithelial cell line), A549, Hep-2 (the human epithelial cell line), RAW 264.7, Vero (normal African green monkey kidney epithelial cell line) for 24 h where IC 50 values ranged from 15.7 to 200 μg/ml. Choudhari et al[15] studied cytotoxic effect of different concentrations (10, 25, 50, 100, 250 μg/ml) of EEP originating from India on four different cancer cell lines,…”

A Comparative Study on Propolis and Pollen Extracts: Chemical Profile Analysis, Antioxidant and Anticancer Activity

“…Vatansever et al (2010) reported cytotoxicity of EEP at a concentration of 125 μg/mL to MCF-7 cell line also they found that cytotoxic effects of seven EEP samples collected from the same location is different. While, Choudhari et al (2013) found that IC 50 for ethanolic extract of propolis (EEP) of four cancer cell lines: human colon adenocarcinoma (HT-29), human epithelial colorectal adenocarcinoma (Caco-2), and murine melanoma cell lines (B16F1), MCF-7 to be 250 µg/mL. In another study, Campos et al (2014) reported that EEP promoted cytotoxic activity and primarily necrotic death in K562 erythroleukemia cells (Barzin et al, 2011;Campos et al, 2014).…”