Evolution
The remarkable diversity and distribution of AFPs suggest the different types evolved recently in response to sea level glaciation occurring 1-2 million years ago in the Northern hemisphere and 10-30 million years ago in Antarctica. This independent development of similar adaptations is referred to as convergent evolution. There are two reasons why many types of AFPs are able to carry out the same function despite their diversity:
- Although ice is uniformly composed of oxygen and hydrogen, it has many different surfaces exposed for binding. Different types of AFPs may interact with different surfaces.
- Although the five types of AFPs differ in their primary sequence of amino acids, when each folds into a functioning protein, they may share similarities in their three dimensional or tertiary structure that facilitates the same interactions with ice.
Read more about this topic: Antifreeze Protein
Famous quotes containing the word evolution:
“As a natural process, of the same character as the development of a tree from its seed, or of a fowl from its egg, evolution excludes creation and all other kinds of supernatural intervention.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“Historians will have to face the fact that natural selection determined the evolution of cultures in the same manner as it did that of species.”
—Konrad Lorenz (1903–1989)
“The evolution of humans can not only be seen as the grand total of their wars, it is also defined by the evolution of the human mind and the development of the human consciousness.”
—Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921–1990)