Julio C Calvo

The study of peptide content Hymenoptera venom has gained great importance in recent decades has shown that in such complexes can be identified several substances that have significant biological activity; the vast majority of research has shown that these extracts can be recognized as active substances: toxins, antimicrobial and nervous system depressants. Such tests have focused on the characterization and purification of one or a group of peptides specific biological activity, but the complexity is still unknown from the viewpoint of the composition of these poisons. Therefore, an analysis by liquid chromatography coupled to mass of venom extract the solitary wasp Pepsis sp, in order to determine the chromatographic profile, the mass composition of the present compounds in the same was made and identify whether there is any relationship with molecular weights of these peptides they have been reported previously in different species of wasps; especially individuals of the Pompilidae family.
As a result of analyzing the molecular masses of 250 possible compounds they were recorded, which range from 900 to about 2000 Da; 0.4 Da molecular weights between 6 product peptide analysis reported in wasps, and only 3 show relationship with the peptides identified in Pompilidos which have antimicrobial function and blocking nicotinic receptors - a ratio of + / was found.

Human papillomavirus type 16 (HPV-16) represents the major cervical carcinoma associated virus among women, especially in Colombia. It has thus become important to develop reliable inexpensive tests for detecting the presence of this virus. It has been shown that HPV16-E7 oncoprotein structural features have three alpha-helical structures and a loop-like structure. The hydrazone link approach was used to mimic helix secondary substructures. Sera from women with invasive cervical carcinoma were tested against conformationally restricted peptides and their respective linear peptides to identify conformational epitopes. One peptide that was conformationally restricted to an alpha-helix showed very strong positive reaction with sera from women having invasive cervical carcinoma; there was no reaction with sera from patients with other carcinomas, children, or healthy women. NMR studies confirmed this peptide's alpha-helical structure. The observation that constrained protein substructure peptidomimetics can identify new conformationally sensitive antibodies in cervical carcinoma patients' sera is very important, since these antibodies are almost all generated by native proteins, providing a new selection of antibodies for diagnostic and vaccine studies.