Bacterial ice-nucleation proteins is a
family of proteins that enable
Gram-negative bacteria
Gram-negative bacteria are bacteria that do not retain the crystal violet stain used in the Gram staining method of bacterial differentiation. They are characterized by their cell envelopes, which are composed of a thin peptidoglycan cell wa ...
to promote
nucleation of ice at relatively high temperatures (above -5C).
These proteins are localised at the
outer membrane surface and can cause frost damage to many plants. The primary structure of the proteins contains a highly repetitive domain that dominates the sequence. The domain comprises a number of 48-
residue repeats, which themselves contain 3 blocks of 16 residues, the first 8 of which are identical. It is thought that the repetitive domain may be responsible for aligning water molecules in the seed crystal.
........48.residues.repeated.domain.......... / / , , \ \
AGYGSTxTagxxssli AGYGSTxTagxxsxlt AGYGSTxTaqxxsxlt
6.residues... 6.residues... 6.residues...
See also
*
Ice-minus bacteria
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bacterial Ice-Nucleation Proteins
Protein domains