Treating cancer with wasp venom

Wasp venom is proving to be a novel source of inspiration for a new therapy for breast cancer. Scientists from the Institute of Biomedical Research in Barcelona (IRB Barcelona) have carried out in vitro tests on tumour cells using wasp venom, and plan to test its efficacy in mouse models. The therapy is based on a peptide derived from the wasp venom. “We were looking for a potent cytolytic peptide, which cancer cells could not produce resistance to, avoiding, in this way, the potential problem of many cancers that is cancer drug resistance,” Miguel Moreno told Laboratory News. “We chose a well-known 14 amino acid cytolytic peptide that belongs to wasp venom because it was the best one between several cytotoxic peptides concerning the cytolytic-activity/length ratio.” Moreno, lead author of the paper in Journal of Controlled Release, said the peptide was synthesised chemically in the lab: “In fact, we used an improved version of the wasp venom, which is more potent. Furthermore, it is protease resistant, meaning that this modified peptide cannot be cleaved by overexpressed proteases located on tumour cells.” “This peptide has the ability to form pores in the cell plasma membrane, penetrate into the cell and finally, cause it’s death, either by necrosis or by triggering apoptosis, programmed cell death,” said Moreno. However, high toxicity and lack of cell specificity means the peptide needed a means of transportation, so researchers developed a decorated carrier polymer with two components. The first is a peptide bound to a tumour cell receptor, and the second the cytotoxic peptide of wasp venom. In vitro experiments showed the peptide duo is adequately distributed within tumour cells and causes apoptosis while healthy cells are unaffected. “In vitro assays with cells can be extrapolated to in vivo experiments with animals. If you injected the venom extract into a mouse, the mouse would die due to the high toxicity. Therefore, venom extract is not useful for any therapy because of its high toxicity. In our particular case, we are interested in killing only cancer cells, so we transport the venom in a safety way to tumour cells, where it is released to kill them all,” said Moreno. The researchers warn that these results are still in their early stages. The next step is to test their efficacy through in vivo tests in mice and researchers are optimistic that this will be successful. They hope that this anti-tumour system could be used as a supplementary therapy to those in existence. Delivering wasp venom for cancer therapy