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Honey and Its Immunostimulatory Activities
Published in Mehwish Iqbal, Complementary and Alternative Medicinal Approaches for Enhancing Immunity, 2023
Natural therapeutic products have been consumed for thousands of years to manage several diseases. Though typical pharmaceutical approaches have replaced many, the extensive population has recently observed the revival of interest in the consumption of honey and its products. Apitherapy is the branch of alternative therapeutics that deals with the usage of bee products, i.e. royal jelly, propolis, honey, pollen and bee venom, to prevent and manage diseases (Ghosh & Playford, 2003). There are fundamentally two principal categories of honey, forest and apiary honey. The honey can be multifloral or monofloral, depending on whether the honey is assembled from the nectar of a similar blossom or the flower nectar of different types. The honey synthesised by the Apis mellifera and Apis cerana indica honey bees in apiaries and gathered by contemporary extraction methods is known as apiary honey, devoid of any foreign matter and transparent. Contrastingly, that synthesised in forests by Apis dorsata or from untamed nests of Apis cerana indica and assembled by the crude compressing comb method is recognised as forest honey. This kind of honey is cloudy or thick with suspended particles including plenty of bee larvae, wax, pollen, fragments of bees and other substances from plants. Hence, it is compulsory to filter the extracted honey to segregate the suspended materials (Subrahmanyam, 2007).
Allergy
Published in Keith Hopcroft, Instant Wisdom for GPs, 2017
Tak Chin, Elizabeth Griffiths, S. Hasan Arshad
Patients who have anaphylaxis to wasp or bee stings can be desensitised with immunotherapy, which is usually given as a 3-year course of injections. This is a very effective treatment and is successful in preventing systemic reactions in approximately 95%–100% of wasp venom allergy patients and approximately 80% of bee venom allergy patients. Those at high risk of future stings (such as gardeners or bee keepers) should be considered for immunotherapy.
Biology and Distribution of Hymenopterans of Medical Importance, Their Venom Apparatus and Venom Composition
Published in Jürg Meier, Julian White, Handbook of: Clinical Toxicology of Animal Venoms and Poisons, 2017
Other peptides are found in bee venoms in small concentrations only and probably do not account for much of their toxic action. Oa-Adolapsin is a basic polypeptide consisting of 103 amino acid residues with an inhibitory effect towards microsomal cyclooxygenase and lypoxygenase, and an algesic effect in mice. Apamin, a basic peptide consisting of one chain of eighteen amino acids stabilized by two disulfide bridges, blocks calcium-dependent potassium channels. The Mastcell degranulating peptide (MCD-peptide), a basic peptide of twenty-two amino acids stabilized by two disulfide bridges, leads to massive release of histamine from mastcells and is a potent blocker of voltage-dependent potassium channels.
The vital role of animal, marine, and microbial natural products against COVID-19
Published in Pharmaceutical Biology, 2022
Aljawharah A. Alqathama, Rizwan Ahmad, Ruba B. Alsaedi, Raghad A. Alghamdi, Ekram H. Abkar, Rola H. Alrehaly, Ashraf N. Abdalla
Melittin and apamin are one of the major compositions of bee venom A. mellifera. Melittin is recognized for its potential anti-inflammatory mechanism via decreasing the phosphorylation of an inhibitor of nuclear factor kappa B (IκB) known IkB kinase (IKK) as well as NF-κB. As consequence of IKK suppression, the secretion of TNF-α IL-1β and IL-6 is reduced with an inhibition of extracellular regulated protein kinases/p38 mitogen-activated protein (ERK/p38 MAP) kinase, leading to the inhibition of NF-κB pathway and matrix metalloproteinase-9 (MMP-9) expression and activity (Lin and Hsieh 2020). A nanoformulation of a combined complex of melittin and sitagliptin against SARS-CoV-2 virus revealed that expectations that the components would effectively pocket-accommodate SARS-CoV-2 3-CLpro were fulfilled (Al-Rabia et al. 2021). Similarly, apamin decreases the NF-κB signal pathway in lipopolysaccharide-treated THP-1-derived macrophages as well as signal transducers and activators of transcription in vitro, thus decreasing the secretion of pro-inflammatory cytokines and Th2 lymphocyte chemokines (Gu et al. 2020).
Antimicrobial peptides and other peptide-like therapeutics as promising candidates to combat SARS-CoV-2
Published in Expert Review of Anti-infective Therapy, 2021
Masoumeh Sadat Mousavi Maleki, Mosayeb Rostamian, Hamid Madanchi
The pore-forming peptides, like Melittin, represent a subset of AMPs that binds to the virus coating and forms a channel-like structure or pore in two lipid bilayers [25]. To date, no studies have been performed on the efficacy of Melittin or its derivatives on SARS-CoV-2. However, in a study in China, bee venom was effective in preventing COVID-19 in beekeepers exposed to bee stings [74]. In this study, apitherapy in 121 people prevented them from developing COVID-19, while three of them were in close contact with COVID-19 patients [74]. Apitherapy is a branch of alternative medicine that uses honey bee products, including honey, pollen, propolis, royal jelly, and bee venom [75]. Regarding previous research on the antiviral role of Melittin and its immunomodulatory function, it can be suspected that in their study the most important effective component in bee venom has been Melittin.
Research progress on radioprotective effects of bee products
Published in International Journal of Radiation Biology, 2021
Xin Zhang, Huali Song, Xiangyou Tang, Shuang Wang, Juan Li, Yuhui Hao
Bee venom has been used to treat various inflammatory diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis (Cho et al. 2012). In a study, mice were focally irradiated with 75 Gy of X-rays in the lung and injected intraperitoneally with bvPLA2 (0.2 mg/kg body weight) at 7, 10, 12, 14, 17 and 19 days after irradiation. The results showed that BvPLA2 reduced the accumulation of immune cells and reduced inflammatory factors (Nlrp1, Nlrp3, IL-1b and Casp1), chemokines (Mip1a, Mcp1 and CCL4) and cytokines (IL-6 and IL-17c) expression. In addition, genes related to fibrosis (Col3a1 and Fn1) were down-regulated. Histological examination of mice lungs showed the formation of hyaline membrane in the alveoli and the reduction of inflammatory cell infiltration. Moreover, the depletion of regulatory T cells offset the therapeutic effect of BvPLA2 on radiation pneumonitis, indicating that the anti-inflammatory effect of BvPLA2 depends on regulatory T cells.These results support the therapeutic potential of BvPLA2 in radiation pneumonitis and fibrosis treatments (Shin et al. 2016).