Bee Venom Toxicity Limited by Mast Cells

Stanford Snake Venom Study Shows That Certain Cells May Eliminate Poison
Stanford School of Medicine, 7/27/2006

Death by snakebite is horrible. The immediate pain of the bite is followed by swelling, bruising and weakness, then sweating or chills, with numbness, nausea, blurred vision and possibly convulsions before it's all over. Such misery is produced by a veritable witches' brew of toxins in snake venom.

It's long been thought that the body's own immune system, rather than reducing the symptoms, may make things worse. But now researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have shown that the immune system really does side with the victim, at least in four kinds of venom that were used in their experiments. Their findings will be published in the July 28 issue of Science.

Venom from three species of poisonous snakes and one species of honeybee were studied by a group led by Stephen Galli, MD, professor and chair of the Department of Pathology. Using mice, they analyzed how mast cells, a vital part of the immune system in mammals, reacted to the various venoms. The net effect of the mast cell response to the four venoms "is to enhance resistance to the toxicity and reduce mortality induced by the venom," said Galli, the paper's senior author…

Testing the mast cell response even further, they also experimented with the venom from honeybees, with the same positive result. "The mast cells significantly limit not only the toxicity, but also the mortality associated with the venom," said Galli…