Comparison of Effects of the Ethanolic Extracts of Brazilian Propolis on Human Leukemic Cells As Assessed with the MTT Assay

Abstract

Propolis is a resinous product collected by honey bees. It was also reported that propolis has a wide variety of biological actions, including antimicrobial activity and antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and suppressive effects of dioxin toxicity activities. The aim of this study was to compare the in vitro cytotoxic activities of green propolis (G12) and red propolis (G13) in human leukemia cells. These cells were incubated with different concentrations of propolis and 48 hours after the IC50 was calculated for each cell. The results showed that the red propolis has cytotoxic effect in vitro higher than green propolis. Red propolis was showed to be cytostatic in K562 cells and caused the same amount of apoptosis as its control Gleevec. In conclusion, these results showed that red propolis is more cytotoxic than the green propolis in a variety of human cell lines of leukemia. Red propolis may contain drugs capable of inhibiting cancer cell growth. Therefore, further isolation of respective chemical ingredients from the red propolis (G13) for identification of the activities is necessary.

Antinociceptive and anti-inflammatory effects of Brazilian red propolis extract and formononetin in rodents

“…Although red propolis extracts and its chemical markers have demonstrated several biological properties, such as healing activity (Albuquerque-Júnior et al, 2009;de Almeida et al, 2013), cytotoxic activity toward tumour cells (Awale et al, 2008), antimicrobial (Righi et al, 2011), and potent antioxidant (Franchi et al, 2012;Righi et al, 2011) actions, the possible anti-nociceptive and anti-inflammatory effects of this product have not been explored so far.…”

Investigating the antioxidant and anticytotoxic activities of propolis collected from five regions of Indonesia and their abilities to induce apoptosis

“…Fernandes- Silva et al (2013) also stated that the chemical composition of propolis depends on the plant or plants from which the resin is collected and, consequently, on the geographic location of the hive. According to Franchi et al (2012), the difference in the quality of propolis could be seen from the location and color of a beehive. However, the composition of propolis is more complex and unpredictable than previously assumed (Teixiera et al, 2005).…”

Inhibition of DMBA‐induced Oral Squamous Cells Carcinoma Growth by Brazilian Red Propolis in Rodent Model

“…Cytotoxic effects of this natural product on cell lines derived from human malignant tumours have recently been demonstrated [12][13][14]. Cytotoxic activity of this variety has been reported in different cell lines, including PANC-1 cells derived from pancreatic adenocarcinoma [15], L5-26 and B16-BL6 derived from colon carcinoma and melanoma, respectively [16], MCF-7 derived from mammary adenocarcinoma [17], and HEp-2 derived from larynx carcinoma [9].…”