Major breakthroughs in Tianjin University DNA storage can make information preserve for thousands of years

Xinhua News Agency, Tianjin, September 17 (Zhang Jianxin, Zhao Hui) The reporter learned from Tianjin University that the school's synthetic biology team innovated DNA storage algorithm, stored ten selected Dunhuang murals into DNA, and accelerated the aging experimental verification mural information information It can be preserved for thousands of years at room temperature and 20,000 years at 9.4 ° C. This algorithm supports DNA molecules to become one of the world's most reliable data storage media, which can keep the human cultural heritage information facing the crisis of aging damage for thousands of years.

The result is recently published in "Nature · Communication".

Dunhuang mural stored in DNA storage

From the rope notes, Cangjie, to the modern magnetic optoelectronics storage technology such as tapes and hard disks, the development of human civilization is closely related to storage technology. With the advancement of science and technology, the data storage method continues to iterate and innovate. Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Professor Yuan Yingjin of Tianjin University has been committed to the next generation of storage technology -DNA storage. "According to international data companies, the total global data will reach an amazing 175ZB (1ZB≈10's 21st byte) by 2025. The world is under construction, and the energy consumption of the data center will be amazing. DNA storage is storage. Because of its high storage density and low energy consumption treatment, it is regarded as a potential storage technology, which has become a new opportunity to deal with the challenge of data storage growth. "Academician Yuan Yingjin said.

In August 2021, Professor Yuan Yingjin's team obtained a major breakthrough in DNA storage. From the beginning, the design of a length of 254886 base pairs and dedicated to data storage was synthesized. Among them, the use of yeast reproduction to achieve stable data replication, and use nano -hole sequencing devices to achieve data quickly and recovery.

DNA storage technology concept map

DNA storage is efficient and low -consumption, but as a chain biological macromolecules, it will face risks such as DNA breakdown degradation when it is stored in vitro. It seriously affects the long -term reliability of information storage. It is a key scientific issue that needs to be solved. In this regard, Yuanying's team designed a sequence reconstruction algorithm based on the theory of Delblayingtu to solve the problem of DNA breaks. This algorithm combines the greedy path search and the circular redundant school code to achieve the efficient assembly of the broken DNA fragment from the beginning, which supports the long -term reliability of DNA storage in principle.

Combined with the sequence reconstruction algorithm (inner code) and the fountain code algorithm (outer code), the team design coded 6.8MB Dunhuang murals, synthesizing 210,000 DNA fragments carrying picture information. For the long -term reliability of the data, the team prepared a DNA aqueous solution sample without any special protection, and accelerated the sample breaks and degradation for ten weeks at 70 ° C. More than 80%of the DNA fragments are processed. There have been broken errors. Relying on the design sequence reconstruction algorithm can still accurately assemble and decode more than 96.4%of fragments, and then solve the problem of a small amount of fragments through the fountain code. Perfect recovery. According to theoretical calculation, high temperature damage at this degree is equivalent to natural preservation of a laboratory room at 25 ° C or 9.4 ° C for 20,000 years.

This is another important breakthrough in the Tianjin University synthetic biology team after the artificial synthetic chromosome internal information storage model.

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