In vitro analysis of the biological activity of royal jelly on different cell lines

Abstract

Royal jelly is a bee product that is traditionally used as a dietary supplement but also as a potential remedy. Although it is widely used, experimental data that supports its therapeutic potential is lacking. Also, many studies have examined individual fractions and isolated substances from royal jelly, but there are very few studies that examine the native form of royal jelly, the one used in the daily diet. Our aim was to examine the effects of royal jelly, in the form of lyophilized powder product commercially available on the market, on the viability and proliferation of different cell lines in vitro. Our results showed that examined royal jelly product did not influence the cell viability of examined cell lines in examined concentrations while acted anti-proliferative in concentration-dependent manner on HeLa, cancer cell line but not on MDCK, non-cancer cell line. We can conclude that royal jelly contains some compounds that could exert certain activity towards cancer cells indicating its potential to which further studies should be directed.