An Operational DNA Strand Displacement Encryption Approach.

Enqiang Zhu,Xianhang Luo,Congzhou Chen,Chanjuan Liu

doi:10.3390/nano12050877

Abstract

DeoxyriboNucleic Acid (DNA) encryption is a new encryption method that appeared along with the research of DNA nanotechnology in recent years. Due to the complexity of biology in DNA nanotechnology, DNA encryption brings in an additional difficulty in deciphering and, thus, can enhance information security. As a new approach in DNA nanotechnology, DNA strand displacement has particular advantages such as being enzyme free and self-assembly. However, the existing research on DNA-strand-displacement-based encryption has mostly stayed at a theoretical or simulation stage. To this end, this paper proposes a new DNA-strand-displacement-based encryption framework. This encryption framework involves three main strategies. The first strategy was a tri-phase conversion from plaintext to DNA sequences according to a Huffman-coding-based transformation rule, which enhances the concealment of the information. The second strategy was the development of DNA strand displacement molecular modules, which produce the initial key for information encryption. The third strategy was a cyclic-shift-based operation to extend the initial key long enough, and thus increase the deciphering difficulty. The results of simulation and biological experiments demonstrated the feasibility of our scheme for encryption. The approach was further validated in terms of the key sensitivity, key space, and statistic characteristic. Our encryption framework provides a potential way to realize DNA-strand-displacement-based encryption via biological experiments and promotes the research on DNA-strand-displacement-based encryption.

Highlights

DeoxyriboNucleic Acid (DNA) can store a large amount of information, and with the rapid development of nanotechnology, DNA nanotechnology has been widely studied for encryption
In view of the increasing need for dealing with large data and ensuring data security, we propose a novel bio-experiment-based DNA encryption method based on the DNA
We proposed a bio-experiment-based DNA encryption framework for data security (i.e., Algorithm 1)

Summary

Introduction

Over the past few years, the world has seen a stunning transformation in how information is exchanged. Communication online (through various platforms) has gradually become an indispensable means for information exchange, and ensuring data security has become one of the most concerning problems. Cryptography plays a pivotal role in protecting the security of data communication by transforming plaintexts into unrecognizable codes [1,2]. DeoxyriboNucleic Acid (DNA) can store a large amount of information, and with the rapid development of nanotechnology, DNA nanotechnology has been widely studied for encryption. DNA encryption, as a novel technique of cryptography, was proposed by Gehani et al [3]. In DNA encryption, data are protected by transforming them into digital DNA codes. Because of the exclusive advantages of DNA molecules, including their large scale of parallelism, high storage capacity, and low power consumption, it is widely

Methods

Results

Conclusion