Learning From Snow Drops Under Snow and ICE

After Heroic Minneapolis

anti-freeze proteins
maintain democracy in
very cold snow drops

how do they do it?
they keep ice particles too
small to be tyrants

Antifreeze Proteins (PDB entry 2pne)

Antifreeze proteins bind to ice crystals, blocking the surface and preventing growth of the crystal. The structure of snow flea antifreeze protein (2pne ) will give you an idea of what this recognition may be like. In the crystal structure, the ice-binding surface of the protein is covered with strings of water molecules (shown here in red). These water molecules are spaced similarly to the water molecules in ice crystals. So you can imagine this protein binding to the geometric lattice of water molecules in ice in a similar way. Click on the image to view an interactive Jmol version.

https://pdb101.rcsb.org/motm/120