Recent Advances in Developing Insect Natural Products as Potential Modern Day Medicines

Table 2

Examples of strategies to overcome the cytolytic properties of melittin.

Strategy	Target	References
(1) Cancer cells killed by dilutions of melittin not affecting normal cells	Lung cancer cells in vitro	Zhu et al. [45]
(2) Point mutation and deletion of specific melittin amino acids	Reduced haemolysis of normal cells but inhibition of bacteria	Zhao et al. [46]
(3) Synthetic melittin coupled to hecate-CGb^a as a delivery vehicle	Ovarian, testicular, and adrenocortical tumours in vivo	Vuorenoja et al. [47]
(4) Melittin coupled to a specific homing peptide identified by phage display	Hepatocellular carcinoma cells in vitro	Zhao et al. [48]
(5) Gene therapy and transfection of melittin gene into tumours	Human bladder carcinoma cells in vitro	Winder et al. [49]
(6) Use of nanoparticle technology for delivery of melittin to tumours	Melanomas in vivo	Soman et al. [50]; Huang et al. [51]

aHecate-CGb: the beta chain of human chorionic gonadotropin.