Refined ...in a variation?

refined = engineered

It means that they were able to isolate the portions of the peptide that allows for (or stimulates) the antibody production. They did it in such a way that they were able to "freeze" (or prevent the hairpinning we were talking about previously) the gp41 protein molecule in the intermediate (open, or extended) position.

Or, engineered with a greater specificity than during their previous study.

Think of it like grades of sand paper on wood. There's rough grit that smooths off the large imperfections, various medium grits that yield a smoother and smoother finish, and finally fine and superfine grits that removed very little of the wood but leave a very smooth finish. Each step is a "refinement" of the wood, ultimately getting down to what you were looking to achieve.

Thank you JPB.

I've got what "refined" meant. But I'm still confused at "in a variation" and "that does not require the drug." What role has the drug played in the refinement? And what is the "variation?"

From your link...


The drug wasn't used in the new refinement. It was what they used in prior studies to disrupt the transformation of gp41. enfuviritide disrupts the gp41 transformation from the open configuration (called gp41-inter) to the hairpin one (called gp41-post). Your article doesn't indicate the particular refinement, but I went to the source paper and read that Frey, Chen, et. al., were able to design a modified (refined) gp41-inter called GCN4-gp41-inter which did not require the use of enfuviritide to stabilize the protein in the pre-hairpin state. The full article is online by subscription only but the abstract and a graphical representation (figure 1) are available online here.

Thank you JPB.
That's useful information.