NEW TRENDS IN CANCER THERAPY AND ANTIVIRAL DRUG RESEARCH.

The search for new trends in cancer and viral infection control has attracted the attention of many scientists nowadays. Egyptian snake, scorpion venoms and L-amino acid Oxidase (LAO) were investigated for their anticancer and antiviral potentials. Cytotoxic effect of test venoms to cancer cell lines was recorded with up to 80 and 63 fold increase in case of LAO enzyme and scorpion venom respectively compared to normal cell line. Venom induced apoptosis was evaluated using semi quantitative RT-PCR and revealed up-regulation of pro-apoptotic genes while down regulation of anti-apoptotic gene. A decrease in size of tumor mass and ascetic fluid volume was also observed in laboratory animals post venom treatment. Snake and scorpion venom treated Vero cells showed a reduction in Herpes simplex virus-II (HSV) infectivity titer by 30% and 40% respectively as well as a marked decrease in Vesicular Stomatitis Virus (VSV) titer post venom treatment. It was apparent that the viricidal potentials exceeds the antiviral one, where VSV was completely inactivated by most venoms within 6 hrs post treatment, while HSV reduction titer was about 65% to 50%, 6 hrs post treatment. Data suggested that theses venoms could present a new approach in anti-tumoral and anti-viral drug research