Evaluation of Tualang honey as a supplement to fetal bovine serum in cell culture

The aim of this study was to evaluate Tualang honey as a supplement to fetal bovine serum in cell cultures using MTT assay, chromosome aberration test and gene expression analyses. The MTT assay showed the highest percentage of cell proliferation (105.3% increment than control) of human osteoblast cell line (CRL 1543) in 0.0195% honey in Dulbecco's modified eagle medium supplemented with 10% fetal bovine serum and 1% penicillin/streptomycin. There was enhanced cell proliferation corresponding to the decrease in concentrations of honey as indicated by the mitotic index values when the osteoblast cell line was incubated at 37 degrees C for 48 hours. There were no chromosome aberrations both in the honey treated as well as distilled water treated (negative control) cell lines. In the case of gene expression analyses, fibroblast cell lines (CCL 171) were treated with honey (0.0195%) for 24 and 48 hours separately. Though there was over expression for the bcl-xl gene at both 24 and 48 hours, under expression for bcl-xs gene at 24 hours and over expression at 48 hours and under expression for both c-myc and p53 genes at both 24 and 48 hours, none of them were statistically significant in altering the expression of mRNA.