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El uso de adhesivos vegetales en diferentes procesos de conservación es una tradición entre los restauradores de papel de origen oriental y de otros países. Los adhesivos de almidón son derivados de raíces y semillas tales como maíz, papa, yuca, arroz y trigo. Los más utilizados en conservación son los de trigo y arroz. En este trabajo se valora la conveniencia del uso de almidón de arroz procedente de variedades de plantas cubanas para tratamientos de restauración de obras sobre papel. Se evaluó la flexibilidad, fuerza de adhesión y estabilidad en el tiempo en probetas elaboradas de papel tratado con almidón de arroz. Dos muestras de almidón purificado a partir de arroz cubano con porcentajes intermedios de amilosa fueron comparadas con muestras de adhesivos comerciales (almidón de trigo, arroz y metilcelulosa). El uso de almidones de arroz cubanos para la restauración del patrimonio documental permite sustituir la importación de adhesivos que resultan extremadamente caros.

Two chimeric synthetic peptides incorporating immunodominant sequences from HTLV-I virus were synthesized. Monomeric peptides P7 and P8 represent sequences from transmembrane protein (gp21) and envelope protein (gp46) of the virus. The peptide P7 is a gp21 (374-400) sequence and the peptide P8 is a gp46 (190-207) sequence. Those peptides were arranged in a way that permits one to obtain different combinations of chimeric peptides (P7-GG-P8 and P8-GG-P7), separated by two glycine residues as spacer arms. The antigenic activity of these peptides were evaluated by UltramicroEnzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (UMELISA) by using panels of anti-HTLV-I-positive sera (n = 22), anti-HTLV-I/II-positive sera (n = 2), HTLV-positive (untypeable) serum samples (n = 2), and anti-HTLV-II-positive sera (n = 11), while specificity was evaluated with anti-HIV-positive samples (n = 19) and samples from healthy blood donors (n = 30). The efficacy of the chimeric peptides in solid-phase immunoassays was compared with the monomeric peptides and monomeric peptides together. The chimeric peptide P7-GG-P8 proved to be the most reactive with anti-HTLV-I-positive sera. These results may be related to a higher peptide adsorption capacity to the solid surface and for epitope accessibility to the antibodies. This chimeric peptide would be very useful for HTLV-I diagnostics.

Two chimeric synthetic peptides incorporating immunodominant sequences from HTLV-II virus were synthesized. Monomeric peptides P2 and P3 represent sequences from transmembrane protein (gp21) and envelope protein (gp46) of the virus. The peptide P2 is a gp21 (370–396) sequence and the peptide P3 is a gp46 (178–205) sequence. Those peptides were arranged in a way that permits one to obtain different combinations of chimeric peptides (P2-GG-P3 and P3-GG-P2), separated by two glycine residues as spacer arms. The antigenic activity of these peptides was evaluated by UltramicroEnzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (UMELISA) by using panels anti-HTLV-II-positive sera ( n = 11), anti-HTLV-I/II-positive sera ( n = 2), HTLV-positive (untypeable) serum samples ( n = 2), and anti-HTLV-I-positive sera ( n = 22), while specificity was evaluated with anti-HIV-positive samples ( n = 19) and samples from healthy blood donors ( n = 30). The efficacy of the chimeric peptides in solid-phase immunoassays was compared with the monomeric peptides and a mixture of the monomeric peptides. Higher sensitivity was observed for chimeric peptide Q5 assay. Those results may be related to a higher peptide adsorption capacity to the solid surface and for epitope accessibility to the antibodies. This chimeric peptide would be very useful for HTLV-II diagnostic.