Photon-directed multiplexed enzymatic DNA synthesis for molecular digital data storage.

Area of Science:

• Biotechnology
• Data Storage
• Molecular Engineering

Background:

• Global data generation necessitates advanced storage technologies.
• DNA offers high stability and information density for data archival.
• Current DNA synthesis relies on chemical methods, limiting parallelization.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a parallelized enzymatic DNA synthesis method.
• To demonstrate spatially-selective DNA synthesis for data encoding.
• To explore maskless photolithography for DNA writing.

Main Methods:

• Utilized maskless photolithography to pattern UV light.
• Employed patterned UV light for rapid uncaging of Co²⁺ ions.
• Activated Terminal deoxynucleotidyl Transferase (TdT) for spatially-controlled DNA synthesis on an array.

Main Results:

• Achieved spatially-selective enzymatic DNA synthesis confined to light patterns.
• Controlled DNA extension length through spontaneous reaction quenching.
• Successfully encoded 12 unique DNA oligonucleotide sequences with digital data (video game music, 110 bits).

Conclusions:

• Demonstrated a novel multiplexed enzymatic DNA synthesis approach.
• This method enables parallelized and spatially-controlled DNA data writing.
• The technique shows potential for efficient and high-density DNA data storage.