R&D: Mixed Culture of Bacterial Cells Enables Economic DNA Storage on Large Scale

Communications Biology has published an article written by Min Hao, Hongyan Qiao, Yanmin Gao, Zhaoguan Wang, Xin Qiao, School of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Tianjin University, Tianjin, China, and Key Laboratory of Systems Bioengineering (Ministry of Education), Tianjin University, Tianjin, China, Xin Chen, Center for Applied Mathematics, Tianjin University, Tianjin, China, and Hao Qi, School of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Tianjin University, Tianjin, China, and Key Laboratory of Systems Bioengineering (Ministry of Education), Tianjin University, Tianjin, China.

Abstract: “DNA emerged as a novel potential material for mass data storage, offering the possibility to cheaply solve a great data storage problem. Large oligonucleotide pools demonstrated high potential of large-scale data storage in test tube, meanwhile, living cell with high fidelity in information replication. Here we show a mixed culture of bacterial cells carrying a large oligo pool that was assembled in a high-copy-number plasmid was presented as a stable material for large-scale data storage. The underlying principle was explored by deep bioinformatic analysis. Although homology assembly showed sequence context dependent bias, the large oligonucleotide pools in the mixed culture were constant over multiple successive passages. Finally, over ten thousand distinct oligos encompassing 2304 Kbps encoding 445 KB digital data, were stored in cells, the largest storage in living cells reported so far and present a previously unreported approach for bridging the gap between in vitro and in vivo systems.“