Cytotoxic Insights of Underexplored Apis cerana indica Bee Venom: An In-vitro and In- silico Study on MCF-7 Breast Cancer Cells

Abstract

Bee venom (BV) also known as apitoxin is produced and released by venom gland in the abdominal cavity of female worker bees are studied extensively for their varied biological and therapeutic properties. The current study uses in vitro and in-silico methods to examine the cytotoxic activity of Apis cerana indica bee venom against MCF-7 human breast cancer cells. The cytotoxicity was assessed using MTT assay which showed potent cytotoxicity toward MCF-7 cells, At the highest concentration of 10 µg/mL, bee venom significantly reduced cell viability to 17.74%. In contrast, at the lowest concentrations cell viability remained relatively higher at 65.33% indicating a reduced cytotoxic impact of bee venom at lower doses with an IC50 value at 0.3655 µg/mL. To further depict the molecular role in exhibiting toxicity molecular docking studies of crucial components of bee venom such as melittin and apamin were docked with cancer-associated proteins such as MUC16, Cathepsin D and Trefoil Factor 1 (TFF1). The docking results showed that apamin exhibited the highest binding affinity with MUC16 (−8.0 kcal/mol), followed by Cathepsin D (−7.5 kcal/mol) and TFF1 (−7.0 kcal/mol). In comparison, melittin showed moderate interaction with MUC16 (−7.2 kcal/mol) and lower affinities with Cathepsin D and TFF1 (−6.0 kcal/mol each) The results revealed that melittin and apamin showed binding affinity with cancer associated proteins supporting the cytotoxic effects observed in vitro.  The key findings suggest that bee venom has cytotoxic effects on breast oncogenic cells. These results reveal the potential therapeutic use of bee venom in treating breast cancer.