Creation of Long-Term Bacterial Storage for Digital Nucleic Acid Memory

To solve the expanding need for limited digital storage, the Nucleic Acid Memory project is developing methods to create archival memory from DNA. However, the current method used to create the DNA origami memory is extremely time consuming. We worked to reduce the growth period of the Eschericia coli that produces the DNA scaffold used to create the origami by testing long-term cold storage methods of E. coli. Aliquots of transformed E. coli were frozen in 20% glycerol and stored at -80°C. The frozen samples were grown weekly and analyzed to determine if DNA was still being produced. We found that the cold storage protocol was effective to reduce total growth time. The frozen and transformed E. coli was able to produce a usable quantity of DNA after six weeks of storage in -80°C and reliably reduced growth time from six to two hours. Viability of the transformed E.coli past six weeks needs further testing, but we estimate the upper limit will be three months. Our findings significantly reduce the time to create DNA origami and increase efficiency so that more time can be dedicated to perfecting a final product.