Anti-cancer activity of propolis extracts from stingless bees of Brunei Darussalam

Propolis from stingless bees is a natural resinous substance with diverse therapeutic properties, including anti-cancer activity. Despite increasing global interest, little is known about the bioactive potential of propolis from Southeast Asian stingless bees, particularly those native to Brunei Darussalam. Therefore, we investigated propolis extracts from five stingless bee species in Brunei and elucidated the underlying molecular mechanisms using transcriptomic and metabolomic profiling. RNAseq and pathway enrichment analysis were performed to investigate the molecular mechanisms influenced by ethanol extracts from the three most potent stingless bee species, H. itama (ext3), T. binghami (ext5), and T. melanoleuca (ext9) on the representative cell lines.