Basic Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2021. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Oncol. May 24, 2021; 12(5): 342-354
Published online May 24, 2021. doi: 10.5306/wjco.v12.i5.342
Thymoquinone anticancer activity is enhanced when combined with royal jelly in human breast cancer
Maya M Moubarak, Nour Chanouha, Najwa Abou Ibrahim, Hala Khalife, Hala Gali-Muhtasib
Maya M Moubarak, Nour Chanouha, Department of Biology, American University of Beirut, Beirut 1107-2020, Lebanon
Najwa Abou Ibrahim, Hala Khalife, Rammal Rammal Laboratory (ATAC group), Faculty of Sciences I, Hadath 1003, Lebanon
Hala Gali-Muhtasib, Department of Biology and Center for Drug Discovery, American University of Beirut, Beirut 1107-2020, Lebanon
Author contributions: Moubarak MM carried out lab work as part of her MSc thesis, performed analysis and interpretation of data (e.g., biostatistics, statistical analysis and editing), and wrote the first draft of the manuscript; Chanouha N performed initial lab work and determined dose responses and performed data analysis; Abou Ibrahim N brought the importance of royal jelly to the attention of the corresponding author, provided it, and contributed intellectually to the study; Khalife H reviewed the manuscript and contributed in the critical appraisal of data; Gali-Muhtasib H conceived the project, supervised the work, and edited the manuscript draft; All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.
Supported by The Lebanese National Council for Scientific Research and the American University of Beirut, No.103482; and the Undergraduate Research Experience of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, American University of Beirut.
Conflict-of-interest statement: Authors declare no conflict of interest for this manuscript.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
ARRIVE guidelines statement: The authors have read the ARRIVE guidelines, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the ARRIVE guidelines.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Hala Gali-Muhtasib, PhD, Professor, Department of Biology and Center for Drug Discovery, American University of Beirut, Bliss Street, Biology Bldg, Room 207, PO Box 11-0236, Riad El Solh, Lebanon, Beirut 1107-2020, Lebanon. amro@aub.edu.lb
Received: January 28, 2021
Peer-review started: January 28, 2021
First decision: March 1, 2021
Revised: March 13, 2021
Accepted: April 26, 2021
Article in press: April 26, 2021
Published online: May 24, 2021
Processing time: 113 Days and 15.7 Hours
Core Tip

Core Tip: Royal jelly enhances thymoquinone (TQ) anticancer activity against breast cancer. TQ induces the apoptotic response in breast cancer cells while royal jelly when combined with TQ potentiates the reduction in cell viability more than each drug alone.