Promiscuous molecules for smarter file operations in DNA-based data storage

Abstract

DNA holds significant promise as a data storage medium due to its density, longevity, and resource and energy conservation. These advantages arise from the inherent biomolecular structure of DNA which differentiates it from conventional storage media. The unique molecular architecture of DNA storage also prompts important discussions on how data should be organized, accessed, and manipulated and what practical functionalities may be possible. Here we leverage thermodynamic tuning of biomolecular interactions to implement useful data access and organizational features. Specific sets of environmental conditions including distinct DNA concentrations and temperatures were screened for their ability to switchably access either all DNA strands encoding full image files from a GB-sized background database or subsets of those strands encoding low resolution, File Preview, versions. We demonstrate File Preview with four JPEG images and provide an argument for the substantial and practical economic benefit of this generalizable strategy to organize data.

In vivo processing of digital information molecularly with targeted specificity and robust reliability

“…This aimed to reduce the length of the encoded DNA sequence for some information containing a large number of repeats and to avoid the appearance of homopolymers. Eventually, the efficiency was up to 4.0 bits per nucleotide in the present systems, which can be an alternative strategy to improve coding efficiency (6,7,13,21,(30)(31)(32)(33)(34)(35)(36)(37)(38)(39)(40), as shown in fig. S10.…”

Current and emerging opportunities in biological medium‐based computing and digital data storage

“…Recently, North Carolina State University researchers on DNA data storage implemented a “file preview” technique through thermodynamic swings. [ 128 ] This will reduce the latency and cost of DNA sequencing and decoding. However, the use of more access conditions (e.g., temperature and/or primers concentrations) leads to increased off‐target interactions in the data payload regions, should be investigated.…”

Design considerations for advancing data storage with synthetic DNA for long-term archiving

“…The main advantage of storing DNA in an aqueous solution is the ease of retrieving information by random access. Polymerase chain reaction is the most widely used method for random access in synthetic DNA storage systems and is scalable with some modifications [ 63 ]. Random access is achieved by using a specific PCR primer to amplify and select the DNA sequence that can then be sequenced and decoded.…”