The Anti-Leukemic Potential of Bee Venom

Bee venom (BV) is a promising candidate against breast and lung, including leukemia. Leukemia is a malignancy related to blood cells that causes abnormal production of leukocytes (WBCs) from bone marrow (BM). Leukemia requires a multimodal treatment approach, including stem cell transplantation, immunotherapy, and chemotherapy. Due to several limitations of current therapies such as drug resistance, severe side effects, high costs, limited targeted treatment options, age-related restrictions, after treatment defects, and the genetic heterogeneity of leukemia, there is a need to explore alternatives such as BV, either as whole or its component(s), or its use in conjugation with other treatments. BV's components such as melittin, found as 40-60% of BV's dry mass, exhibit anti-cancer activity such as pro-apoptotic, anti-proliferative, and cell membrane disruption. BV is a potent inducer of apoptosis, while inhibiting cell survival processes such as the Akt/ERK. BV can be considered as the potent anti-leukemia candidate. Various studies have demonstrated BVs effectiveness on leukemia cell lines such as HL-60, K562, Jurkat cell line, U937 cells, CCRF-CEM, K562, THP-1 cell lines, in a dose-time-cell line-dependent manner. This review aims to comprehend the current research assessing the effectiveness of apitherapy in leukemia through in vitro studies. The limitations of present studies and future possibilities exploring the synergistic effect of BV with the conventional treatments and targeted delivery of BV aimed at enhancing the effectiveness of treating leukemia are also highlighted.