Bacterial "flash drive"
A reliable method of recording data from a computer directly into the DNA of living cells has been created
Vasily Parfenov, Naked Science
American scientists have developed a way to turn bacterial colonies into a storage device connected to a computer. In their experiment, cells with living organisms played the role of real memory banks, like on a flash drive.
A team of scientists from Columbia University (New York, USA) published the results of their work in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Chemical Biology (Yim et al., Robust direct digital-to-biological data storage in living cells). To record and read data, biologists have created a system sensitive to redox reactions in cells. It is configured to detect the interactions of specific plasmids with the chromosomal deoxyribonucleic acid of bacteria.
Bacterial "flash drive". Figures from the article by Yim et al.
Plasmids are compact DNA molecules that, under normal conditions, can carry additional bacterial genetic material isolated from the main genome. Often it is these structures that help microorganisms acquire resistance to new environmental factors. Due to the property of plasmids that are relatively easy to transfer from cell to cell, scientists often use them as a tool for genetic modifications.
The scheme of a storage device from bacterial colonies.
To turn bacteria into storage devices, two types of specially created plasmids were introduced into them – sensory and recording. They respond to certain biological signals and begin to modify the genome of the bacterium. The necessary data is recorded in the same way as a barcode in pre-selected CRISPR loci. The ability of bacteria to protect their genome from negative environmental factors made it possible to read the data stored by scientists even after 80 generations of experimental microorganisms.
The capacity of the experimental memory bank is not impressive yet – only 72 bits in 24 three-bit cells. This was enough to record "Hello World" with specially developed code, but in order to put the technology into practice, serious improvements are required. In addition, it is necessary to reduce the number of errors: even on such a small amount of information, the reading accuracy was only 98 percent.
Schematic diagram of the experiment.
As a rule, methods of recording data in deoxyribonucleic acid imply a complete synthesis of the molecule with the necessary information on it. In this case, living cells act only as a data warehouse, endlessly replicating genetic material with side information.
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