Stingless Bee Propolis from Indonesia Induces In Vitro Cytotoxicity and Apoptosis in Cancer Cell Lines

Both genetic and environmental factors are known to play a role in causing cancer (Iwasaki and Tsugane, 2011). For the last few decades the standard cancer treatments have involved surgery, radiation and chemotherapy. However, metastatic disease frequently redevelops even after surgery. In addition, the typical systemic treatment regime has often led to intolerable side-effects. Chemotherapeutic drugs still have a lot of constrained problems, including not being selective in killing cancer cells but also inducing normal cell death. Although the mode of action of these drugs is to affect the synthesis of nucleic acids and/or proteins, drug resistant cancers have been found. For example, rhabdomyosarcoma was reported to be resistant to platinum-based chemotherapy,