Abstract
Validation of long-term DNA stability and integrity are essential for the use of DNA in data storage applications. Because of this, we evaluated the plasmid-based DNA data storage in a manner that preserves DNA stability and integrity. A document consisting of 2046 words was encoded with DNA sequences using Perl script, and the encoded DNA sequences were synthesized for information storage. The DNA comprised a total of 22 chemically synthesized DNA fragments with 400 nucleotides each, which were incorporated into a plasmid vector. A long-term DNA stability study demonstrated that 3-year stored plasmid containing text information showed DNA stability at controlled conditions of −20 °C. The plasmid DNA under accelerated aging conditions (AAC) up to 65 °C for 20 days, which corresponds to approximately 20 years of storage at −20 °C, also exhibited no significant differences in DNA stability compared to newly produced plasmid. Also, the 3-year old plasmid stored at −20 °C and the AAC-tested plasmid stored up to 65 °C for 20 days had functional integrity and nucleotide integrity comparable to control sample, thereby allowing for retrieval of the original error-free text data. Finally, the nucleotides were sequenced, and then decoded to retrieve the original data, thereby allowing us to read the text with 100% accuracy, and amplify the DNA with a simple and quick bacterial transformation. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report on examining the long-term stability and integrity of plasmid-based DNA data storage. Taken together, our results indicate that plasmid DNA data storage can be useful for long-term archival storage to recover the source text in a reproducible and accountable manner.
Highlights
In this digital age, developing a digital data storage strategy is very important because the storage media for information are inherently inconsistent and prone to obsolescence due to rapid and remarkable advances in information technology
We performed long-term stability analyses with plasmid DNA stored at −20 ◦ C for 3 years as well as under accelerated aging conditions (AAC) up to 65 ◦ C for 20 days, which corresponds to approximately 20 years of storage at −20 ◦ C, for the monitoring of stability and integrity of plasmid DNA for data storage
Our findings indicated that plasmid containing information DNA stored at controlled conditions of −20 ◦ C could possess DNA stability at least for 3 years, and the plasmid could be protected from degradation even under elevated conditions of temperature up to 65 ◦ C for 20 days, which is equivalent to approximately 20 years of DNA storage at −20 ◦ C
Summary
In this digital age, developing a digital data storage strategy is very important because the storage media for information are inherently inconsistent and prone to obsolescence due to rapid and remarkable advances in information technology. Examples of digital data storage media are hard-disk drives, solid state storage, magnetic tapes, flash drives, and optical discs. Digitization of text information, most often in the form of binary code that uses only zeros and ones, allows for space reduction in repositories by reducing the high volume of hard copy outputs because printed texts are Polymers 2018, 10, 28; doi:10.3390/polym10010028 www.mdpi.com/journal/polymers. There is a lifetime limit on writing even to flash memory. One of its weaknesses is that reading flash memory slightly degrades surrounding stored values, which can eventually lead to errors. Alternative media for digital storage devices with improved integrity and stability are required to overcome their susceptibility to physical damage or catastrophic loss
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