• Journal of Pharmacopuncture
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.5-41
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• 2010

Objectives: This study was performed to analyse four week repeated dose toxicity of Sweet Bee Venom(Sweet BV) extracted from the bee venom in Beagle dogs. Methods: All experiments were conducted under the regulations of Good Laboratory Practice (GLP) at Biotoxtech Company, a non-clinical study authorized institution. Male and female Beagle dogs of 5-6 months old were chosen for the pilot study of four week repeated dose toxicity of Sweet BV which was administered at the level of 0.56mg/kg body weight which is eighty times higher than the clinical application dosage as the high dosage, followed by 0.28 and 0.14mg/kg as midium and low dosage, respectively. Equal amount of excipient(normal saline) to the Sweet BV experiment groups was administered as the control group every day for four weeks. Results: 1. No mortality was witnessed in all of the experiment groups. 2. All experiment groups were appealed pain sense in the treating time compared to the control group, and hyperemia and movement disorder were observed around the area of administration in all experiment groups, and higher occurrence in the higher dosage treatment. 3. For weight measurement, Neither male nor female groups showed significant changes. 4. In the urine analysis, CBC and biochemistry didn't show any significant changes in the experiment groups compared with control group. 5. For weight measurement of organs, experiment groups didn't show any significant changes compared with control group. 6. To verify abnormalities of organs and tissues, thigh muscle which treated with Sweet BV, cerebrum, liver, lung, kidney, and spinal cords were removed and conducted histologocal observation with H-E staining. In the histologocal observation of thigh muscle, cell infiltration, inflammatory, degeneration, necrosis of muscle fiber, and fibrosis were found in both thigh tissue. And the changes were depend on the dose of Sweet BV. But another organs were not detected in any abnormalities. 7. The proper high dosage of Sweet BV for the thirteen week repeated test in Beagle dogs may be 0.28mg/kg in one time. Conclusion: Above findings suggest that Sweet BV is relatively safe treatment medium. Further studies on the subject should be conducted to yield more concrete evidences.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.25 no.6
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• pp.715-723
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• 2015

Insects represent the largest class within the animal kingdom in terms of species number. Humans had been utilized insect in the broad area, including food, agriculture, industry, pharmaceuticals and so on. At present, insects are emerging as a leading group for identifying and extracting novel bioactive substances due to enormous number and a high nutritional value. Insects rely on a suite of systemic response to resist infection such as immune cells, hemocytes, activation of enzymes cascades, and antimicrobial peptide/protein. Among the substances, antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are main components of potent antimircrobial innate defense system into the insect hemolymph. AMPs raise influential candidate as avenue to resolve the development of antibiotic-resistant microbial organism. Insect AMPs are classified into four main classes: cecropins, insect defensins, glycine/proline-rich peptides. Insect AMPs have been purified, over 150. In this review, AMPs derived from several insects were summarized including honey bee, dung beetle, butterfly and longicorn beetle. These peptides almost exhibited potent antimicrobial activities against human microbial pathogens without causing remarkable hemolysis to erythrocytes excluding melittin, and their mode of action(s) are based on disruption of the plasma membrane or fungal apoptosis. Therefore, study of insect AMPs is expected to be useful for designing novel therapeutic antimicrobial applications.

• Journal of Apiculture
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.269-273
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• 2017

We investigated whether purified bee venom increases the enzymatic activity of the alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) and aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH). ADH and ALDH assay were tested by in vitro kits. The purified bee venom was assayed by ultra performance liquid chromatography, The contents of melittin, apamin and phospholipase A2, as main component of purified bee venom, were 63.9%, 2.3%, and 10.9%, respectively. The ADH and ALDH acitivity of purified bee venom(at 1mg/ml) were $88.6{\pm}7.34%$ and $94.6{\pm}0.57%$, respectively compared with positive control at 2mg/ml. These results showed that purified bee venom induces the activity of ADH and ALDH which reduce the aldehyde concentration in the blood, suggesting the possibility of purified bee venom as resource of medicine or functional beverage for hangover relieving.