The lesser paper wasp, Parapolybia varia, belongs to large subfamily Polistinae and is distributed in Middle East, the Indo-Papuan region and East Asia. P. varia is known to become aggressive when disturbed for defending their colonies, resulting in fatal envenomation. Vespid chemotactic peptide (VCP) and vespakinin have recently been determined to be the top two genes most abundantly transcribed in venom glands of P. varia. To investigate the pharmacological and toxicological properties of VCP and vespakinin, their antitumor, antimicrobial, and cytotoxic activities were evaluated. VCP exhibited a significantly high antitumor activity against ovarian tumor cell SK-OV-3 at 100 M. VCP also showed higher hemolytic activity than vespakinin. Antimicrobial activity was only observed with VCP against yeast Candida albicans at 1 mM. Since VCP showed a relatively low hemolytic activity but a considerable level of antitumor activity, it has further merits to be exploited as a potential antitumor agent with reduced side effects on normal cells.

• Kyungjae Andrew Yoon(Department of Agricultural Biology, Seoul National University)
• Kyungmun Kim(Department of Agricultural Biology, Seoul National University)
• A-Young Kim(Ilsong Institute of Life Science, Hallym University)
• Young Han Park(Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Hallym University Sacred Heart Hospital)
• Woo Young Bang(National Institute of Biological Resources (NIBR), Environmental Research Complex)
• Chang Mu Kim(National Institute of Biological Resources (NIBR), Environmental Research Complex)
• Young Ho Koh(Ilsong Institute of Life Science, Hallym University, Department of Biomedical Gerontology, Hallym University)
• Si Hyeock Lee(Research Institute of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Seoul National University)