antifreeze glycoprotein

any of a group of glycoproteins found in the serum of certain cold-water fish, particularly notothanids and chaenichthyids, which inhabit polar seas; e.g., Trematomus borchgrevinki and Dissostichus mawsoni. These glycoproteins depress the freezing point of aqueous solutions about 200 — 500 times as effectively as sodium chloride on a molar basis. They differ only in mass (10.5 kDa, 17 kDa and 21.5 kDa), and are composed of repeating units of a diglycosyl tripeptide, Ala-Ala-Thr-O-disaccharide, in which the disaccharide consists of a β-galactosyl residue bound to an internal α-N-acetylgalactosaminyl residue.

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