STUDY ON ANTIBACTERIAL ACTIVITY OF BEE VENOM.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the antimicrobial activity against Salmonella infection which causes intestinal diseases from bee venom which is one of the social insects, and to find a way which use ghost vaccine. The minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of bee venom against Salmonella Typhimurium χ3339 was 101.81 ug/ml. Based on the result of MIC, the antimicrobial activity according to amount of the cells showed strong activities below 106 CFU/ml, but exhibited no and low activity at 108 and 107 CFU/ml, respectively. In addition, the antimicrobial activity assay according to the cultural temperature showed the strongest activity at 37℃. The thermal stability of bee venom appeared to be very stable at temperatures below 60℃, but gradually decreased at more than 60℃. The protease inhibitor mixture was shown to greatly enhance the antimicrobial activity of bee venom. Since most of the activity is lost due to the treatment with Proteinase K, it is estimated that the antimicrobial activity of bee venom is induced by peptides. Therefore, we suggest that bee venom can be used as an antimicrobial agent for ghost vaccine production.