Honey bees have two mechanisms of defense when they perceive a threat.  The first one is to attack by stinging – some of us have experienced this painful behavior.  The second one is to release pheromones when stinging, in order to let the other bees know where the threat is.

In collaboration with colleague Paul Schlesinger, M.D., Ph.D., Associate Professor at Washington University, the group of Samuel Wickline, Ph.D., Director of the Siteman Center of Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence, has extended their work on perfluorocarbon nanoparticles by designing nanoparticles loaded with melittin, creating a structure akin to “nanobees.”  Melittin is the active component of honey bee venom.

The nanobees safely target—or “sting”—developing tumor cells by incorporating a peptidomimetic ligand that can bind to α_vβ₃-integrin, which is found on the surface of the newly developing blood vessels that sprout during the early stages of tumor development.  When stinging, nanobees release the melittin toxin, a cytolytic peptide that attacks all surrounding lipid membranes, which leads to the death of tumor cells by apoptosis.

In their publication, the authors show experimental data that prove the efficiency of the nanobees.  Indeed, when using nanobees, they observed a 25% reduction in the tumor growth rate of human breast cancers in athymic nude mice and an 88% reduction in melanoma mass in immunocompetent mice.

Nanobees do not yet “learn” from other nanobees where the threat is.  To achieve a collective behavior, nanobees might be endowed with the capacity to bind to other nanobees if they are attached to tumor cells.  A stinging nanobee might recruit other nanobees to multiply the melittin dosage. Such social behavior might cause tumor cells to go from being threatened to outright endangered!  Now wouldn’t that be a sight?