Synthesis-free DNA data storage

New research demonstrates a synthesis-free method for storing data in DNA, using a universal DNA template to encode that data ( Nature 2024, DOI: 10.1038 /s41586-024-08040-5 ). The traditional approach to DNA data storage converts binary data into the DNA nucleotide bases adenine, guanine, cytosine, and thymine, and then synthesizes that DNA sequence, a time-consuming process. What molecular engineer Hao Yan of Arizona State University and colleagues propose, instead, is to record the streams of zeros and ones directly onto the DNA itself by selective methylation. “It’s all in the methylation layer,” says Long Qian , a researcher at Peking University who is a coauthor of the study. The method is based on a naturally occurring process called epigenetic modification—chemical changes to the DNA that affect its expression. First, the researchers fabricated a universal single-strand DNA, as well as a library of hundreds of short, single DNA strands called bricks.