Bee venom (Apis mellifera L. BV) has been used as a cosmetic ingredient for anti-ageing, anti-inflammatory and antibacterial functions. The aim of this study was to evaluate the acute toxicity after a single dermal administration of BV, BV was administered to 2 groups of Sprague-Dawley (SD) male and female rats (5 animals/group) at doses of 0 and 1,500 mg/kg body weight (BW). Mortality, clinical signs, body weight changes and gross findings were continually monitored for 15 days following the single dose. There were no unscheduled deaths in any groups during the study period. No BV related clinical signs and body weight changes were observed in any groups during the study period. There were no abnormal gross findings at necropsy on day 15 after the treatment. On the basis of the above results, it was concluded that there were no treatment-related effect on mortality, clinical signs, body weight changes and gross findings in SD rats treated with a single dermal dose of BV at dose of 1,500 mg/kg BW. Therefore, the approximate lethal dose of BV was considered to be over 1,500 mg/kg/day for both sexes of rats. BV may provide a developmental basis for a cosmetic ingredient or external application for topical uses.
Administration, Cutaneous ; Animals ; Bee Venoms ; Bees ; Body Weight ; Body Weight Changes ; Cosmetics ; Female ; Humans ; Male ; Rats

Bee sting therapy is sometimes used for the treatment of chronic recalcitrant neuralgia and arthralgia in traditional Korean herbal medicine, but retained sting materials at the treatment site may induce granulomatous inflammation. Recently, dried honey bee venom (Apitoxin Inj, Guju Pharma. Co., Seoul, Korea) has been approved by the Korea Food and Drug Administration (KFDA) as an anti-inflammatory drug. The adverse events associated with dried honey bee venom injection include itching, edema, pain, headache, fever and myalgia, but foreign body granuloma caused by drug injection has not been previously reported. We herein report two interesting cases of foreign body granuloma induced by dried honey bee venom injection.
Arthralgia ; Bee Venoms ; Bees ; Bites and Stings ; Edema ; Fever ; Foreign Bodies ; Granuloma, Foreign-Body ; Headache ; Herbal Medicine ; Honey ; Inflammation ; Korea ; Neuralgia ; Pruritus ; United States Food and Drug Administration

Recently the use of peptides in bee venom (PBV) for cancer therapy has attracted considerable attention. In this study, the sterically stabilized liposomal PBV (PBV-SL) was prepared using soybean phosphatidylcholine, cholesterol, and cholesterol-PEG-COOH. The humanized antihepatoma disulfide-stabilized Fv (hdscFv25) was coupled to sterically stabilized liposomes using the N-hydroxysuccinimide ester method. The hdscFv25-immunoliposomes (SIL[hdscFv25]) were immunoreactive as determined by ELISA assay. SIL[hdscFv25] showed higher tumor cells selectivity. PBV-SIL[hdscFv25] can kill SMMC-7721 cells in vitro with higher efficiency than non-targeted liposomes. Whereas cytotoxicties were compared for Hela cells, no significant differences was observed between PBV-SIL[hdscFv25] and PBV-SL. Sterically stabilized immunoliposomal peptides in bee venom could be one drug targeting delivery system.
Antineoplastic Agents ; administration & dosage ; pharmacology ; Bee Venoms ; chemistry ; Carcinoma, Hepatocellular ; pathology ; Cell Line, Tumor ; Cell Survival ; drug effects ; Cholesterol ; chemistry ; Drug Delivery Systems ; HeLa Cells ; Humans ; Immunoconjugates ; chemistry ; pharmacology ; Liposomes ; chemistry ; Liver Neoplasms ; pathology ; Melitten ; administration & dosage ; isolation & purification ; pharmacology ; Peptides ; administration & dosage ; isolation & purification ; pharmacology ; Recombinant Proteins ; administration & dosage ; pharmacology

The objective of this study was to determine the clincotherapeutic effect of whole bee venom in hypogalactic sows postpartum. Sows after parturition were assigned to treated and nontreated control groups. In the treated group, 22 sows were bee acupunctured once a day for 3 consecutive days. Honeybees (Apis mellifera L.) for bee acupuncture were about 15 days after metamorphosis. One live bee was used to sting the acupoints known as Yang-ming (ST-18, 1.5 cm lateral to the base of the last 2 pairs of teats) and Jiao-chao (GV-1, at the indentation between the base of tail and the anus). In the control group, 20 sows were intramuscularly injected with a standard dosage of penicillin G (400,000 IU/head) once a day for 3 consecutive days. At post-treatment, 85.0% of the drug-treated control and 90.9% of the bee venomtreated group recovered from hypogalactia syndrome. The advantages of apitherapy were that the patients did not have stress because they were not restrained for a long period. The result suggested that apitherapy using bee venom is an effective treatment for sows with hypogalactia syndrome postpartum.
*Acupuncture Points ; Animals ; Anti-Bacterial Agents/administration & dosage ; Bee Venoms/administration & dosage/*therapeutic use ; Body Temperature ; Escherichia coli/isolation & purification ; Female ; Injections, Intramuscular/veterinary ; Lactation Disorders/drug therapy/therapy/*veterinary ; Mammary Glands, Animal/microbiology ; Penicillin G/administration & dosage ; Staphylococcus/isolation & purification ; Streptococcus/isolation & purification ; Swine ; Swine Diseases/drug therapy/*therapy

To confirm whether class I histone deacetylase inhibitors (HDACIs) are effective in relief of peripheral inflammatory pain, the effects of two selective inhibitors, MS-275 and MGCD0103, were studied in rats inflamed by subcutaneous (s.c.) injection of bee venom (BV). The BV test is characterized by displaying both persistent spontaneous nociception (PSN) and primary hypersensitivity. Intrathecal (i.t.) pre-treatment of either MS-275 or MGCD0103 with a single dose of 60 nmol/20 μL resulted in profound suppression of both PSN and primary thermal hypersensitivity but without significant influence upon the primary mechanical hypersensitivity and mirror-image thermal hypersensitivity. Moreover, the up-regulation of both HDAC1 and HDAC2 induced by s.c. BV injection was completely suppressed by i.t. pre-treatment of MS-275. The present results provide with another new line of evidence showing involvement of epigenetic regulation of chromatin structure by HDAC1/2-mediated histone hypoacetylation in the BV-induced PSN and thermal hypersensitivity and demonstrate the beneficial effects of class I HDACIs in prevention of peripheral inflammatory pain from occurring.
Animals ; Bee Venoms ; administration & dosage ; Benzamides ; pharmacology ; Epigenesis, Genetic ; Histone Deacetylase 1 ; genetics ; metabolism ; Histone Deacetylase 2 ; genetics ; metabolism ; Histone Deacetylase Inhibitors ; pharmacology ; Hot Temperature ; Hyperalgesia ; drug therapy ; Inflammation ; drug therapy ; Injections, Subcutaneous ; Nociception ; Pain ; chemically induced ; drug therapy ; Pain Measurement ; Pyridines ; pharmacology ; Pyrimidines ; pharmacology ; Rats ; Rats, Sprague-Dawley ; Up-Regulation