Accumulation of antifreeze proteins on ice is determined by adsorption.

Date

2024

Authors

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

YU Faculty Profile

Abstract

Antifreeze proteins (AFPs) facilitate the survival of diverse organisms in frigid environments by adsorbing to ice crystals and suppressing their growth. The rate of AFP accumulation on ice is determined by an interplay between AFP diffusion from the bulk solution to the ice-water interface and the subsequent adsorption of AFPs to the interface. To interrogate the relative importance of these two processes, here we combine non-equilibrium fluorescence experiments with a reaction-diffusion model. We find that as diverse AFPs accumulate on ice, their concentration in the aqueous solution does not develop a gradient but remains equal to its bulk concentration throughout our experiments. These findings lead us to conclude that AFP accumulation on ice crystals, which are smaller than 100 microns in radius, is not limited by the diffusion of AFPs, but by the kinetics of AFP adsorption. Our results imply that mass transport limitations do not hinder AFPs from performing their biological function.

Description

Scholarly article / Open access

Keywords

Antifreeze proteins (AFPs), Binding, NATURAL SCIENCES::Physics::Condensed matter physics::Defects and diffusion, Thermal Hysteresis

Citation

Thosar, A. U., Shalom, Y., Braslavsky, I., Drori, R., & Patel, A. J. (2023). Accumulation of antifreeze proteins on ice is determined by adsorption. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 145(32), 17597-17602.