Molecular targets of honey bee’s products in cancer prevention and treatment

Abstract

Chemotherapy and radiotherapy are currently the main treatments for cancer but their toxicities on the surrounding normal cells limit their use in cancer therapy. Moreover, many cancers have developed some resistance to the available anticancer chemicals and put in failure the chemotherapy currently used in the cancer treatment. This failure of the targeted monotherapy resulting from bypass mechanisms has obligated researchers to use agents that interfere with multiple cell-signaling pathways. Recently, researches focused on the use of natural products which can target cancer promoting factors genes expression. Of these natural products, honey has been extensively studied. The pharmacological properties of honey include antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antibacterial, immunomodulatory, estrogenic and anti-cancer effects. The honey bee’s products are potent sources of nutritional components including sugar, amino-acids, water and minerals. Furthermore honey contains chemopreventive compounds such as flavonoids, phenol acids, tannins, vitamins that may interfere with multiple cell’s pathways and hereby reduce the incidence of many types of cancers. However, the molecular mechanisms of honey bee’s products in cancer prevention and treatment are less known. This review highlights the molecular mechanism of honey bioactive compounds in cancer prevention and treatment.

Keywords: Cancer, Cell signaling pathways, Chemotherapy, Chemopreventive compounds, Honey