How is information stored in the DNA molecule What is this information used for?

DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid, is the hereditary material in humans and almost all other organisms. Nearly every cell in a person’s body has the same DNA. Most DNA is located in the cell nucleus (where it is called nuclear DNA), but a small amount of DNA can also be found in the mitochondria (where it is called mitochondrial DNA or mtDNA). Mitochondria are structures within cells that convert the energy from food into a form that cells can use.

The information in DNA is stored as a code made up of four chemical bases: adenine (A), guanine (G), cytosine (C), and thymine (T). Human DNA consists of about 3 billion bases, and more than 99 percent of those bases are the same in all people. The order, or sequence, of these bases determines the information available for building and maintaining an organism, similar to the way in which letters of the alphabet appear in a certain order to form words and sentences.

DNA bases pair up with each other, A with T and C with G, to form units called base pairs. Each base is also attached to a sugar molecule and a phosphate molecule. Together, a base, sugar, and phosphate are called a nucleotide. Nucleotides are arranged in two long strands that form a spiral called a double helix. The structure of the double helix is somewhat like a ladder, with the base pairs forming the ladder’s rungs and the sugar and phosphate molecules forming the vertical sidepieces of the ladder.

An important property of DNA is that it can replicate, or make copies of itself. Each strand of DNA in the double helix can serve as a pattern for duplicating the sequence of bases. This is critical when cells divide because each new cell needs to have an exact copy of the DNA present in the old cell.

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To reduce the burden on traditional data centers, improving on DNA data storage could be the key

The pace at which data – such as photos, videos, and social media posts – are being generated is ramping up drastically, exceeding the scaling limits of traditional silicon-based data storage technologies, and DNA could be deployed to help meet this challenge. As an indication of the massive amount of data storage that may be required, one model predicts that by the year 2030, electricity use by data centers could approach about eight percent of total global electricity demand. New paradigms for data storage, such as the use of DNA for preserving information, are necessary.

DNA is genetic material that contains plans for the design of living things, but DNA can also be used to store data created by living things. DNA is an attractive material for data storage – it is stable, writable, readable, and information dense. In theory, the entire world’s data could be stored in a coffee mug-sized portion of DNA.

So how does storing, for example, a video, in DNA work? (See Figure 1.) First, an algorithm is used to encode the video into the As, Ts, Cs, and Gs that make up DNA molecules. The DNA molecules are then synthesized, and stored. To access the data, the DNA molecules would be sequenced, and the DNA sequences translated using the same algorithm, reproducing the video.

Figure 1. Data storage and retrieval in DNA. First, data – like those stored on a computer hard drive – are processed by an algorithm that translates 1s and 0s into DNA sequences made up of As, Ts, Cs, and Gs. DNA strands with those sequences are then synthesized – or written – and stored either in living cells (in vivo) or in the test tube (in vitro). Data can be retrieved from storage in part by using PCR – the same technology deployed to test for the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 – to selectively target specific data packages. The PCR products can be read with DNA sequencing instruments, providing the original DNA sequences, and reproducing the data. Figure adapted from Ceze, Nivala, and Strauss 2019, Nature Reviews Genetics.

DNA is a polymer – a substance consisting of a high number of similar building blocks that are linked together – and other polymers can be used to store information, too. For example, plastic polymers are being explored for information-storage applications; one group synthesized a plastic polymer that, when read out, reproduced a quote by Jane Austen. By expanding experimental development efforts into (i) increasing the rates at which DNA can be synthesized and sequenced and (ii) detecting and correcting for errors in DNA synthesis, and by pursuing fundamental research into data storage across a variety of polymers, it is possible the U.S. science and technology enterprise could devise a polymer-based method for rapid data storage and retrieval, and meet the data storage challenge.

This CSPI Science and Technology Policy Snapshot expands upon a scientific exchange between Congressman Bill Foster (D, IL-11) and his new FAS-organized Science Council.

How is information stored in A DNA molecule?

DNA stores biological information in sequences of four bases of nucleic acid — adenine (A), thymine (T), cytosine (C) and guanine (G) — which are strung along ribbons of sugar- phosphate molecules in the shape of a double helix.

What is the information stored in DNA used for?

FROM COMPUTER CODE TO GENETIC CODE They are the basis of all DNA code, providing the instruction manual for building every living thing on earth. A fairly well-understood technology, DNA synthesis has been widely used in medicine, pharmaceuticals and biofuel development, to name just a few applications.