Abstract

Significance In the past decades, a vast body of experimental and theoretical work has been undertaken to investigate the molecular level mechanism underlying heterogeneous ice nucleation. However, understanding of heterogeneous ice nucleation is still far from satisfactory. Antifreeze proteins (AFPs) are endowed with the unique ability to control freezing. Our research reveals the exact effect of AFPs on ice nucleation at the molecular level, which correlates ice nucleation with the surface chemistry and topography of different faces of AFPs. We also emphasize a critical role for the non–ice-binding face of AFPs and discover that the proper function of AFPs is realized only by synergistic effects of the non–ice-binding face and the ice-binding face.