Table of Contents
What is the main component of bee venom?
mellitin
The major component of honeybee venom is mellitin, which acts as a detergent to disrupt cell membranes and liberate biogenic amines and potassium. Mellitin is a protein that hydrolyzes cell membranes, alters cellular permeability, and causes histamine release.
What chemicals are in bee venom?
It is a complex mixture of enzymes and peptides. Enzymes in the bee venom include phospholipase A2, phospholipase B, hyaluronidase, phosphatase and α-glucosidase. In addition, bee venom contains peptides such as melittin, apamin, mast cell degranulating peptide, adolapin, tertiapin, secapin, melittin F and cardiopep.
What protein is in bee sting?
The venom of the honeybee contains histamine, mast cell degranulating peptide, melittin, phospholipase A2, hyaluronidase and acid phosphatase. The three proteins in honeybee venom which are important allergens are phospholipase A2, hyaluronidase and acid phosphatase.
What is the allergen in bee venom?
These results strongly indicate that by using RAST with human sera from bee sting-sensitive individuals, fraction 1, the high molecular materials, and fraction 2, hyaluronidase, are the major allergens in honeybee venom. Phospholipase A appears to be of secondary importance.
What is the bioactive component of bee venom?
Bee venom (BV) is essentially a complex mixture, composed of peptides, toxic proteins, and other bioactive components.80–82 The main component is a 26-amino acid, hemolytic peptide called melittin, which constitutes about 50–60% of the venom by dry weight and is responsible for most of the observed effects of BV.
What kind of peptides are found in wasp venom?
The peptides that are found in the venoms are termed ‘wasp kinin’ and ‘hornet kinin’ respectively; these aren’t as well characterised as the peptides in bee venom, however. Like bee venom, they also contain phospholipase A, the enzyme hyaluronidase, and histamine.
How is bee venom used for medical purposes?
When researching bee venom for medical purposes, scientists begin with dry bee venom. When exposed to air, venom dries into grayish-white crystals. These crystals are then converted into a powder form. The hope is that this powdered bee venom can be used to produce injectable venom for the treatment of certain diseases.
How many amino acids are in a bee sting?
Melittin — a compound that consists of 26 amino acids — comprises about 50% of the dry weight of the venom and has been shown to have antiviral, antibacterial, and anticancer effects in some studies ( 1, 2 ). That said, it’s primarily responsible for the pain associated with bee stings ( 3 ).