Insect Venoms and their Bioactive Components: A Novel Therapeutic Approach in Chronic Diseases and Cancer

Abstract

To counteract the growing burden of chronic diseases, discovery of highly selective target specific drugs is of utmost importance in present scenario. Various advanced therapeutic procedures and modern drugs have been developed and approved in last three decades for treating these disorders. The very first limitation of these therapies is their side effects, which are severe and long term. Also, these treatments are a costly affair and of limited therapeutic advantages. To overcome it, exploration and mining of natural products is much necessary. Phytotherapy is already well-established in the field of drug discovery. Focus should also be provided on zoo-therapy, as it is loaded with paramount of possibilities regarding disease treatment. Insect venoms are cocktail of bioactive components with different physiological actions that have undergone evolutionary refinement through a long time-scale. This evolutionary selection over time makes them more suitable candidate for target specific drug discovery. In this review we are trying to throw some light on some significant insect venom components with their mechanism of patho-physiological actions, relevance in the field of advanced drug discovery targeting chronic diseases including cancer.