Epic Quest Bio The case files
Case No. 95 · have you seen this molecule?

Antifreeze protein

keeps winter flounder from freezing

File sealed

The detectives are still writing this one up. The poster and the facts are below; the film and the interrogation room open soon.

Booking photographs

Antifreeze protein, front view, against a height chart in nanometers
FRONT
Antifreeze protein, side view
SIDE · PDB 1WFA

The suspect, from its real atomic coordinates. Drag to turn it. Height chart in nanometers, ruled every 0.5 nm. A quarter is about 300,000 times thicker.

Rap sheet

Answers to
AFP6. The most common one in the fish’s blood.
Height
6 nm, standing on end. 37 links long.
Weight
5.4 zeptograms
Build
A single stiff helix. Mostly alanine.
Marks
A threonine every 11 links, lined up down one side, to grip ice.
Habits
Sticks to tiny ice crystals and stops them growing.
Hours
Winters only. Hardly any left by summer.
First seen
The first of its kind, found in this fish’s blood.
Last seen
A 5 mL tube marked FLOUNDER in the freezer at HQ.
23,000,000,000,000,000,000

of them in a teaspoon of a winter flounder’s blood serum, midwinter.
You’ve never seen one.

The poster on the street

The wanted poster for Antifreeze protein

This is the photocopied wanted poster for Antifreeze protein, No. 95. They were made for noticeboards around Boston, Cambridge and the rest of the east coast.

Found one? Scan its QR code with your phone. If you're a signed-in player, the sighting goes on your record with +1 XP.

Not a player yet? Join the Epic Quest: the real role-playing game of Molecular Reality, a nanopore lab, with the CEO as gamemaster.