Kinetic pinning and biological antifreezes

Abstract

Biological antifreezes protect cold-water organisms from freezing. An example are the antifreeze proteins (AFPs) that attach to the surface of ice crystals and arrest growth. The mechanism for growth arrest has not been heretofore understood in a quantitative way. We present a complete theory based on a kinetic model. We use the `stones on a pillow' picture. Our theory of the suppression of the freezing point as a function of the concentration of the AFP is quantitatively accurate. It gives a correct description of the dependence of the freezing point suppression on the geometry of the protein, and might lead to advances in design of synthetic AFPs.

arXiv comment4 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (1)

• Nonequilibrium Dynamics of Interfaces and Lines

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Impurity-induced step interactions: a kinetic Monte-Carlo study
• Dynamical mechanism of antifreeze proteins to prevent ice growth
• Atomistic Insights into the Chain-Length-Dependent Antifreeze Activity of Oligoprolines
• Crossover from lamellar to spongy ice morphologies within a single ice crystal during unidirectional freezing of an aqueous solution