Montivipera bornmuelleri anti-tumor promoting effects on HaCaT skin keratinocytes

Abstract

Snake venoms have an important place in medicine. Snakes are among the most venomous animals on Earth. Even in very small quantities, their venom can kill a man. However each diluted dose can become a very effective drug. Viperidae snakes venoms are a source of many bioactive compounds that have contributed in the development of many medical drugs some of which are used as anticancer agents.The action of the venom of Montivipera bornmuelleri, which is a Lebanese snake,was shown to have antibacterial activity in addition to significant biological properties on the cardiovascular system. The current study aims to evaluate the cytotoxiceffect of the Lebanese Montivipera bornmuelleri snake venom on human-derived cancer cell lines including the nontumorigenic HaCaT cell line as well as on the benign A5 and the low-grade malignant II4 using both the Trypan blue and LDH cytotoxicity tests. The Montivipera bornmuelleri snake venom was found to reduce the viability of the three studied cell lines in a dose dependent manner. However,the venom induced a more relevant decrease in the cell viability percentage of the benign A5 cell line and the low grade II4 keratinocytes at the same concentration of venom. This venom showed a higher cytotoxic activity on the A5 and the II4 cells compared to the non-tumorigenic HaCaT cells with an IC50 estimated at 10µg/ml on II4 andat 60µg/ml on benign A5. This could be explained by the presence of phospholipases A2 among the components of the venom evaluated by the literature to play a crucialcytotoxic role suggesting that the importance of these molecules in the therapyagainst cancer.