Integrating DNA Encapsulates and Digital Microfluidics for Automated Data Storage in DNA

Abstract

Using DNA as a durable, high‐density storage medium with eternal format relevance can address a future data storage deficiency. The proposed storage format incorporates dehydrated particle spots on glass, at a theoretical capacity of more than 20 TB per spot, which can be efficiently retrieved without significant loss of DNA. The authors measure the rapid decay of dried DNA at room temperature and present the synthesis of encapsulated DNA in silica nanoparticles as a possible solution. In this form, the protected DNA can be readily applied to digital microfluidics (DMF) used to handle retrieval operations amenable to full automation. A storage architecture is demonstrated, which can increase the storage capacity of today's archival storage systems by more than three orders of magnitude: A DNA library containing 7373 unique sequences is encapsulated and stored under accelerated aging conditions (4 days at 70 °C, 50% RH) corresponding to 116 years at room temperature and the stored information is successfully recovered.

Preserving DNA in Biodegradable Organosilica Encapsulates

“…200 PB/g of dry matter, which is still orders of magnitude higher than the data density of currently used digital data carriers. 23 In this arrangement, the loading capacity is limited by the surface area of the cores, and only the use of porous cores 22 or layerby-layer 17 polymer assembly would enable higher DNA loadings.…”

“…Using recent data on experimentally achievable data storage densities in DNA of 18 EB of digital data per gram of DNA, the described encapsulation strategy decreases this to ca. 200 PB/g of dry matter, which is still orders of magnitude higher than the data density of currently used digital data carriers . In this arrangement, the loading capacity is limited by the surface area of the cores, and only the use of porous cores or layer-by-layer polymer assembly would enable higher DNA loadings.…”

Emerging Approaches to DNA Data Storage: Challenges and Prospects

“…Despite DNA’s long-term stability in well-controlled environments such as ancient bone, with storage durations as long as several hundred thousand years, , both aqueous solutions and dried DNA only exhibit a half-life on the order of months to a few years under ambient conditions . Therefore, considerations for the physical storage of data-encoding DNA are crucial for realizing its potential for long-term data storage.…”

“…Among those, hydrolysis is the dominating decay pathway in a data storage context. , Thus, all applicable DNA storage approaches focus on protecting the DNA from moisture and oxygen with either microscopic (i.e., on the level of individual molecules) or macroscopic (i.e., on the level of individual pools) containers. Examples of microscopic containers include encapsulation within silica particles; ,− embedding in alkaline salt, polymer, sugar, or silk protein matrices; and coprecipitation with calcium phosphates imitating bone. In the latter category, dried or lyophilized DNA is stored on filter paper within hermetically sealed capsules with inert atmosphere ,,, or, as is common in biological practice, simply frozen in aqueous solutions and stored at −20 or −80 °C …”

A robust and efficient DNA storage architecture based on modulation encoding and decoding

“…Synthetic DNA has now been proved to be a new potential storage medium for the exponentially growing data 1,2 . The total amount of data stored in synthetic DNA has reached the GB level; various practical automated read/write technologies for DNA storage have been proposed [3][4][5] . Unlike traditional electric/optical/magnetic storage media, DNA storage is characterized by large amount of insertions, deletions, and substitutions(IDSs) due to high error prone DNA synthesis and sequencing processes 6 .…”