Part:BBa_K584022

Different types of Gram-negative bacteria possess the ability to catalyze ice formation in temperatures ranging from -2 to -12°C [1, 2]. Most of the ice nucleating active (INA) bacteria are known to be found in plants [3] and animals [4, 5]. Other microorganisms with several genres of fungi [6] and lichens [7] are also reported to have the ability to induce formation.

References

[1] Lindow et al., Bacterial Ice Nucleation: A Factor in Frost Injury to Plants, Plant Physiol. (1982) 70, 1084-1089
[2] Hirano et al., Ice Nucleation Temperature of Individual Leaves in Relation to Population Sizes of Ice Nucleation Active Bacteria and Frost Injury,Plant Physiol. (1985) 77, 259-265
[3] Lindow et al., Distribution of ice nucleation-active bacteria on plants in nature, Applied and Environmental Microbiology, DEC. 1978, p. 831-838
[4] Worland and Block, Ice-Nucleating Bacteria from the Guts of Two Sub-Antarctic Beetles, Hydromedion sparsutum and Perimylops antarcticus (Perimylopidae), Cryobiology 38, 60 – 67 (1999)
[5] J. S. Bale et al., Effects of summer frost exposures on the cold tolerance strategy of a sub-Antarctic beetle, Journal of Insect Physiology 47 (2001) 1161–1167
[6] C. Richard et al., Ice nucleation activity identified in some phytopathogenic Fusarium species, Phytoprotection, vol. 77, n° 2, 1996, p. 83-92.
[7] Kieft et al., Biological Ice Nucleation Activity in Lichen Mycobionts and Photobionts, The Lichenologist (1989), 21: 355-362