Tehran University Medical Journal

Background: Insects and arthropods, along with their products, have been used as medicinal sources since ancient times, that is called entomotherapy. Cancer is one of the major problems in medical science, for which a drug has not yet been discovered to control it quickly and accurately. Arthropods have been medicinal sources since ancient times and they especially Insects have a high potential for insect therapy because of the biodiversity. This research investigates the effect of insect body extracts and arthropods in inhibiting the growth of cancer cells or tumours, specifically on the breast cancer cell line, MCF7002E
Methods: The basic and applied study was conducted in Isfahan from 2018 to 2023. In this research, six species of insects, namely Gryllotalpa sp., Polyrhachis sp., Dolichovespula sp., Apis mellifera, Periplaneta americana, Drosophila melanogaster, and one species of Chilopoda, Scolopendra sp., were used. The samples were washed with distilled water and 70% alcohol, then frozen and powdered and prepared in 1% DMSO at eight concentrations of 62.5, 125, 250, 500, 1000, 2000, 4000, 8000 μg/ml and were evaluated for the control of two lines of breast cancer cells MCF-7 by the MTT test was performed to check the effect of doses. The affected doses of insects and centipedes were performed in 6 replicates and three times to MCF-7 cells. IC50 and LD50 were calculated by Prism version six software to check the effect of concentrations determine the effective dose and choose the best extract to control the growth of MCF-7 breast cancer cells.

Results: Scolopendra sp., Drosophila melanogaster, Periplaneta americana, Polyrhachis sp., Apis mellifera, and Gryllotalpa sp. are the most effective species, respectively, in inducing apoptosis and cell death in MCF-7 cancer cell line. Dolichovespula sp. had the least effect. Scolopendra sp. at a concentration of 500 μg/litre induced cell death in more than 50% of MCF-7 cancer cells.
Conclusion: The results of the application of seven different genera of arthropods and insects showed that these genera have excellent therapeutic potential, particularly in the treatment of MCF-7 cancer cells.