Abstract

CYTOTOXICITY OF GEOTRIGONA, MELIPONA AND SCAPTOTRIGONA ECUADORIAN POT-HONEYS IN HUMAN OVARIAN CANCER CELL MODEL

Fazlul Huq, Jun Qing Yu, Silvia RM Pedro, Elizabeth Pérez-Pérez, Favian Maza, Patricia Vit*

ABSTRACT

Honey is a traditional natural medicine constantly revisited as an anticancer agent administered alone and in combination. Chemotherapy with cytotoxic agents decrease the quality of life of patients. Hence, the need of studies on complementary and alternative medicine to improve therapeutic outcomes, as investigated here for honey. The human ovarian cancer model based on MTT tetrazolium salt colorimetric assay was used to determine cytotoxicity of three types of pot-honey produced by Ecuadorian stingless bees known with ethnic names “abeja de tierra”, “catiana” and “bunga negra” corresponding to Geotrigona leucogastra, Scaptotrigona sp and Melipona grandis. The honeys were characterized for their antioxidant activity measured with three methods, flavonoid, polyphenols and protein contents. The Melipona grandis pot-honey was the most active with IC50 value of 0.15 mg mL-1 for the A2780, and also in overcoming cisplatin resistance with a remarkably low IC50 0.05 mg mL-1 for the A2780cisR, and a resistance factor of 0.32. This pot-honey demonstrated a distinctive characteristic illustrated by a wide reduction of the IC50 value in the cisplatin resistant A2780cisR cell line.

Keywords: Antioxidant activity, Biochemical components, Cytotoxicity, Ecuador, honey, Human ovarian cancer, Meliponini.