2013 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

Inhibition of ice melting by antifreeze protein

Research Project

Project/Area Number	24656149
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
Allocation Type	Single-year Grants
Research Field	Thermal engineering
Research Institution	National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology
Principal Investigator	INADA Takaaki 独立行政法人産業技術総合研究所, エネルギー技術研究部門, 主任研究員 (60356491)
Project Period (FY)	2012-04-01 – 2014-03-31
Keywords	氷結晶 / 不凍タンパク質 / 融解 / 結晶成長 / 負結晶
Research Abstract	Antifreeze protein (AFP), which has been discovered in several organisms living in cold regions, has a function to inhibit ice growth. AFP is also expected to inhibit ice melting. However, there are few reports on melting inhibition by AFP. In this study, melting of ice crystal was examined using a negative crystal system, where AFP solution is surrounded by an ice crystal, based on the hypothesis that the melting inhibition can be detected only in a negative crystal system. The results showed that AFP can inhibit ice melting at temperatures even above the equilibrium melting temperature by acting on specific ice crystal planes.