Bee Venom as a Neuroprotective Agent in Parkinson's Disease

Objective/Rationale: 
Based on a serendipitous obsrevation in one patient with Parkinson’s disease (PD), resaerchers wish to verify, in a pre-clinical model of the disease, whether bee venom and one of its components, apamine, are able to stop or slow the loss of dopaminergic neurons.

Project Description:
Models will be injected with two substances that induce the slow loss of dopaminergic neurons. In parallel, these models will be treated with bee venom or one of its components called apamine. Investigators believe the latter to be largely responsible for the beneficial effects on the survival of dopaminergic neurons. The behavior and the function of the neuronal system underlying the motor features of PD in the models will be analyzed.

Relevance to Diagnosis/Treatment of Parkinson’s Disease: 
Bee venom injections are used for desesentization treatments against allergies to bee venom. Usually, patients are injected once/monthly into the muscle. This treatment is safe, easy and cheap. If used in PD patients, it could represent either an adjunct to existing symptomatic therapies or even be used as a single therapy in the early disease course.

Anticipated Outcome:
These researchers wish to know whether bee venom and/or its constituent, apamine, are able to slow or halt the disease process in Parkinson’s. They believe that these substances sustain the function of dopaminergic neurons, the neuronal cell type most severely affected in PD. This study would pave the way for a first clinical trial, which would be fairly easy to organize since bee venom injections are considered to be safe and simple.