Nanowerk May 4, 2023
For DNA-based storage systems scalable parallel random access to information needs to be robustly established. An international team of researchers (the Netherlands, USA – Microsoft, University of Washington, UK) has developed a thermoconfined polymerase chain reaction, which enabled multiplexed, repeated random access to compartmentalized DNA files. The strategy was based on localizing biotin-functionalized oligonucleotides inside thermoresponsive, semipermeable microcapsules. At low temperatures, microcapsules were permeable to enzymes, primers, and amplified products, whereas at high temperatures, membrane collapse prevented molecular crosstalk during amplification. Their data showed that the platform outperformed non-compartmentalized DNA storage compared with repeated random access and reduced amplification bias tenfold during multiplex polymerase chain reaction. Using fluorescent sorting, they demonstrated sample pooling and data retrieval by microcapsule barcoding. According to the researchers their work shows that the thermoresponsive microcapsule technology offers a scalable, sequence-agnostic approach for repeated random access to archival DNA files… read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLEÂ
Proteinosomes as a platform for DNA data storage. Credit: Nature Nanotechnology (2023)Â