The expression of COX-2 in NCI-H1299 was low compared to the control, and it is known that COX-2 is frequently up-regulated in tumors (Wolff et al., 1998), so that selective downregulation of COX-2 is an important strategy in the development buy LDK378 of anti-tumor agents. Russell et al. (2004) presented a solution to increase melittin efficiency against tumors. Tumor-specific antibodies can be used to target melittin to tumor cells. In the study, administration of an immunoconjugate

containing a melittin-like peptide (peptide 101), improved the survival of immune-deficient mice bearing subcutaneous human prostate carcinoma xenografts. The specific antibody-peptide 101 conjugate also significantly FAK inhibitor inhibited tumor growth compared to the controls: unconjugated antibody or peptide alone. These new strategies can be used to decrease the non-specificity of some toxins and also to increase the action potential, since the immunoconjugates showed a greater anti-cancer potential than the peptide alone. Hu et al. (2006) showed that BV displays a cytostatic effect in a dose- and time-dependent manner, inhibits proliferation and induces apoptosis of SMMC-7721 human hepatoma cells. The study demonstrated that treatment with BV reduced expression of Ki67, a protein that

is expressed in proliferating cells, and the proliferation rate of treated cells went from 97.0% to 10.2%. In vivo experiments with balb/c nude mice showed that treatment with 1.5 or 3 mg/kg of BV resulted in a significant retardation of SMMC-7721 cell growth, with a tumor inhibition of 31.4% and 48.2%, respectively. In the latest years, PLA2 isolated from BV has become of great interest due to its great anti-cancer potential. Putz et al. (2006) reported that the adjuvant treatment with bee venom-sPLA2 and phosphatidylinositol-(3,4)-bisphosphate (PtdIns(3,4)P2) was more effective 4-Aminobutyrate aminotransferase than any of the single components in the blocking of tumor cell growth. This adjuvant treatment had a synergistic effect together with potent cell lysis. The authors suggest that the observed cytotoxicity is due to the disruption of the membrane integrity, the abrogation of signal

transduction and the generation of cytotoxic lyso-PtdIns(3,4)P2. They further demonstrated a reduction in the proliferation of the human cell kidney carcinoma cell line (A498) employing the adjuvant treatment with sPLA2 and PtdIns(3,4)P2, associated with a complete downregulation of PKB/Akt phosphorylation. The PI3-kinase/PKB/Akt pathway represents a central survival-related signal transduction pathway and its activation enhances cell survival and promotes tumor invasion (Coffer et al., 1998). Furthermore, treated cells exhibited a decrease of the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFr). The tumor lysates formed after treating the cells with bv-sPLA2 and PtdIns(3,4)P2 enhanced the maturation of immunostimulatory human monocyte-derived dendritic cells.