Phys.org  October 4, 2021 The multipart architecture of current DNA-based recording techniques renders them inherently slow and incapable of recording fluctuating signals with subhour frequencies. To address this limitation, a team of researchers in the US (Northwestern University, Johns Hopkins University, Columbia University, MIT, University of Pennsylvania) developed a simplified system employing a single enzyme, terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase (TdT), to transduce environmental signals into DNA. TdT adds nucleotides to the 3′-ends of single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) in a template-independent manner, selecting bases according to inherent preferences and environmental conditions. By characterizing TdT nucleotide selectivity under different conditions, they showed that TdT […]