Therapeutic Evaluation of Ethanolic Bee Pollen Extract from Malaysian Stingless Bee in MCF-7 and MCF-10A Cell Lines

Bee pollen is a complete food containing comprehensive nutrients and therapeutic properties that could eliminate free radicals. Three stingless bee species native to Malaysia were used to prepare bee pollen ethanolic extracts (BPE): Geniotrigona thoracica, Heterotrigona itama, and Tetrigona apicalis. The methodology used in this study was a trypan blue exclusion assay for cell proliferation activity in cultured breast adenocarcinoma human cell lines (MCF-7) and mammary epithelial human cell lines (MCF-10A). In addition, the therapeutic index (TI) was analyzed to assess the relative antiproliferative activity of BPE on cancer versus normal cells. Geniotrigona thoracica, BPE exhibited the highest therapeutic index (TI = 3.12) compared to H. itama (TI = 1.16) and T. apicalis (TI = 0.90) BPE. Each species represents different bioactive compounds due to different pollen foraging activities. Therefore, the highest TI species (G. thoracica) could be a potential candidate to be developed as a potential chemotherapeutic agent.