A new study carried on wood frogs revealed that they are continuously undergoing freeze-thaw cycles. Kenneth Storey, a professor of biochemistry at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada took the frogs through a series of freeze-thaw cycles and found no unfavorable effects. In the research, the molecular mechanics enabling wood frogs to freeze and thaw was studied.
Storey looks forward to this technique to be used to assist human organ transplants some day. For now, an organ can be implanted to into a patient in a very short time before the donated gets too much damaged. Since the cells desiccate, the freezing organs can’t be taken as an alternative.
There are some special proteins in the body of wood frogs called nucleating proteins that freezes the water earlier than that of blood. The converted ice makes the most of water to get out of the frog’s cells. Simultaneously, the liver starts generating large amounts of glucose, which prevents additional water from being pulled out of the frog’s cells, which can annihilate them. Such nucleating proteins don’t exist in human beings. Therefore, when our skin freezes and make us frostbite, it fatally drains all the water out of our cells and causes them to collapse.
The results put forward by this study could one day act as a major base for aiding human organs transplants.
via: nationalGeographic
