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An Anti-Inflammatory Peptide from Bee Venom

Abstract

THE belief that the venom of the common honey bee, Apis mellifira, is beneficial in certain arthritic and rheumatoid conditions goes back to antiquity1. In a study of phospholi-pase-A2,3 we have fractionated nearly 1 kg of freeze-dried bee venom and tested all the fractions for anti-inflammatory activity. Preliminary experiments showed activity to be associated with the basic peptide fraction. The peptides were separated using ‘Sephadex’ G25 and G50 followed by ion-exchange chromatography using either CM ‘Sephadex’ C25 (pH 4.7) or SE ‘Sephadex’ C25 (pH 4.2).

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BILLINGHAM, M., MORLEY, J., HANSON, J. et al. An Anti-Inflammatory Peptide from Bee Venom. Nature 245, 163–164 (1973). https://doi.org/10.1038/245163a0

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