Toad Venom Antiproliferative Activities on Metastatic Melanoma: Bio-Guided Fractionation and Screening of the Compounds of Two Different Venoms

Soumoy, Laura; Wells, Mathilde; Najem, Ahmad; Krayem, Mohammad; Ghanem, Ghanem; Hambye, Stéphanie; Saussez, Sven; Blankert, Bertrand; Journe, Fabrice

doi:10.3390/biology9080218

Open AccessArticle

Toad Venom Antiproliferative Activities on Metastatic Melanoma: Bio-Guided Fractionation and Screening of the Compounds of Two Different Venoms

by

Laura Soumoy

^1,†

,

Mathilde Wells

^2,†,

Ahmad Najem

³

,

Mohammad Krayem

³

,

Ghanem Ghanem

³,

Stéphanie Hambye

²,

Sven Saussez

^1,4,

Bertrand Blankert

²

and

Fabrice Journe

^1,3,*

¹

Laboratory of Human Anatomy and Experimental Oncology, Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy, University of Mons, 7000 Mons, Belgium

²

Laboratory of Pharmaceutical Analysis, Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy, University of Mons, 7000 Mons, Belgium

³

Laboratory of Oncology and Experimental Surgery, Institut Jules Bordet (ULB), 1000 Brussels, Belgium

⁴

Department of Oto-Rhino-Laryngology, Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), CHU Saint-Pierre, 1000 Brussels, Belgium

^*

Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.

^†

These authors contributed equally to this work.

Biology 2020, 9(8), 218; https://doi.org/10.3390/biology9080218

Submission received: 23 June 2020 / Revised: 29 July 2020 / Accepted: 7 August 2020 / Published: 10 August 2020

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Molecular Targets and Targeting in Biomedical Sciences)

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Abstract

Melanoma is the most common cancer in young adults, with a constantly increasing incidence. Metastatic melanoma is a very aggressive cancer with a 5-year survival rate of about 22−25%. This is, in most cases, due to a lack of therapies which are effective on the long term. Hence, it is crucial to find new therapeutic agents to increase patient survival. Toad venoms are a rich source of potentially pharmaceutically active compounds and studies have highlighted their possible effect on cancer cells. We focused on the venoms of two different toad species: Bufo bufo and Rhinella marina. We screened the venom crude extracts, the fractions from crude extracts and isolated biomolecules by studying their antiproliferative properties on melanoma cells aiming to determine the compound or the combination of compounds with the highest antiproliferative effect. Our results indicated strong antiproliferative capacities of toad venoms on melanoma cells. We found that these effects were mainly due to bufadienolides that are cardiotonic steroids potentially acting on the Na⁺/K⁺ ATPase pump which is overexpressed in melanoma. Finally, our results indicated that bufalin alone was the most interesting compound among the isolated bufadienolides because it had the highest antiproliferative activity on melanoma cells.

Keywords: melanoma; targeted therapies; resistance to drugs; toad venom; cardiotonic steroids; sodium pump; marinobufagenin; bufalin; high performance liquid chromatography; mass spectrometry

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MDPI and ACS Style

Soumoy, L.; Wells, M.; Najem, A.; Krayem, M.; Ghanem, G.; Hambye, S.; Saussez, S.; Blankert, B.; Journe, F. Toad Venom Antiproliferative Activities on Metastatic Melanoma: Bio-Guided Fractionation and Screening of the Compounds of Two Different Venoms. Biology 2020, 9, 218. https://doi.org/10.3390/biology9080218

AMA Style

Soumoy L, Wells M, Najem A, Krayem M, Ghanem G, Hambye S, Saussez S, Blankert B, Journe F. Toad Venom Antiproliferative Activities on Metastatic Melanoma: Bio-Guided Fractionation and Screening of the Compounds of Two Different Venoms. Biology. 2020; 9(8):218. https://doi.org/10.3390/biology9080218

Chicago/Turabian Style

Soumoy, Laura, Mathilde Wells, Ahmad Najem, Mohammad Krayem, Ghanem Ghanem, Stéphanie Hambye, Sven Saussez, Bertrand Blankert, and Fabrice Journe. 2020. "Toad Venom Antiproliferative Activities on Metastatic Melanoma: Bio-Guided Fractionation and Screening of the Compounds of Two Different Venoms" Biology 9, no. 8: 218. https://doi.org/10.3390/biology9080218

APA Style

Soumoy, L., Wells, M., Najem, A., Krayem, M., Ghanem, G., Hambye, S., Saussez, S., Blankert, B., & Journe, F. (2020). Toad Venom Antiproliferative Activities on Metastatic Melanoma: Bio-Guided Fractionation and Screening of the Compounds of Two Different Venoms. Biology, 9(8), 218. https://doi.org/10.3390/biology9080218

Note that from the first issue of 2016, this journal uses article numbers instead of page numbers. See further details here.

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Toad Venom Antiproliferative Activities on Metastatic Melanoma: Bio-Guided Fractionation and Screening of the Compounds of Two Different Venoms

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