Determining the Ice-binding Planes of Antifreeze Proteins by Fluorescence-based Ice Plane AffinityKoli Basu 1, Christopher P. Garnham 2, Yoshiyuki Nishimiya 3, Sakae Tsuda 3, Ido Braslavsky 4, Peter Davies 1
1Department of Biomedical and Molecular Sciences, Queen's University, 2National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, Porter Neuroscience Research Center, 3Research Institute of Genome-Based Biofactory, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, 4The Robert H. Smith Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environment, Institute of Biochemistry, Food Science, and Nutrition, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Antifreeze proteins (AFPs) bind to specific planes of ice to prevent or slow ice growth. Fluorescence-based ice plane affinity (FIPA) analysis is a modification of the original ice-etching method for determination of AFP-bound ice planes. AFPs are fluorescently labeled, incorporated into macroscopic single ice crystals, and visualized under UV light.