Background

Antifreeze protein (AFP) protect a wide range of organisms (e.g. fungi, bacteria, fungi, fish and plants) from freezing in extremely cold environments and as such give rise to the diversity of protein structures. Owing to its importance in the survival of cold-adapted organisms and their promising agricultural, medical and industrial applications, therefore the precise identification of AFPs is of the essence.

Although, AFP cannot stop the growth of ice crystals, they slow them down by lowering the freezing point by a few degrees. Technically, the formation of ice occurs by a process known as ice recrystallization in which small ice crystals form and their size grows bigger and bigger when surrounding water molecules are attracted to it. AFPs target this recrystallization effect by binding to the surface of ice crystals and preventing them from growing into larger and more lethal crystals.

About CryoProtect

CryoProtect is a prediction web server that was established to afford easy access to a prediction tool that can be used to rapidly assess whether a query protein sequence is an AFP or not. The web server was implemented using a random forest classifier together with a combination of amino acid composition and dipeptide composition descriptors that was trained on a balanced data set consisting of 300 AFPs and 300 non-AFPs.