Increased frequency of sister chromatid exchanges and decrease in cell viability and proliferation kinetics in human peripheral blood lymphocytes after in vitro exposure to whole bee venom.

The present study was aimed to investigate the impact of bee venom on frequency of sister chromatid exchanges (SCE) and viability in human peripheral blood lymphocytes in vitro. In addition, the proportion of lymphocytes that undergo one, two or three cell divisions as well as proliferative rate index (PRI) have been determined. Aqueous solution of whole bee venom was added to whole blood samples in concentrations ranging from 0.1 microg/mL to 20 microg/mL in different lengths of time. Results showed that whole bee venom inhibited cell viability, resulting in a 22.86 +/- 1.14% and 51.21 +/- 0.58% reduction of viable cells at 1 hour and 6 hours, respectively. The mean SCE per cell in all the exposed samples was significantly higher than in the corresponding controls. In addition, the percentage of high frequency cells (HFC) for each sample was estimated using the pooled distribution of all SCE measurements. This parameter was also significantly higher compared to the control. Inhibition of proliferation was statistically significant for both exposure times and concentrations and was time and dose dependent. These data indicate that whole bee venom inhibited cell proliferation, resulting in a 36.87 +/- 5.89% and 38.43 +/- 1.96% reduction of proliferation at 1 hour and 6 hours, respectively. In conclusion, this report demonstrated that whole bee venom is capable of inducing DNA alterations by virtue of increasing sister chromatid exchanges in addition to the cell viability decrease and inhibition of proliferation kinetics in human peripheral blood lymphocytes in vitro.