A brief review on DNA storage, compression, and digitalization

Abstract

Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) comprises four nucleotides and twenty amino acids (a combination of nucleotides) that generate living organisms’ structures. These discrete components, jointly with DNA characteristics and functions, allow understanding the DNA as a digital component. Thus, when DNA is considered an organic digital memory, it becomes a compelling data storage medium given its superior density, stability, energy efficiency, longevity, and lack of foreseeable technical obsolescence compared with conventional electronic media. Furthermore, various challenging experiments (described in this work) have demonstrated that digital information (regardless of its type, i.e., text, audio, video, image) can be written in DNA, stored, and accurately read. On the other hand, since nature has designed DNA with a tremendous capacity to store information, compression techniques (also described in this work) are required for appropriately managing this enormous quantity of information. Finally, we discuss a bit’s representation for nucleotides and amino acids due to DNA digital characteristics.