R&D: Engineered Spore-Forming Bacillus as Microbial Vessel for Long-Term DNA Storage

ACS Syntheticbiology has published an article written by Feng Liu, Jiashu Li, Tongzhou Zhang, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech), Shenzhen518055, China, Jun Chen, and Chun Loong Ho, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech), Shenzhen518055, China, and Shenzhen Institute of Synthetic Biology, Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology (SIAT), Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen518055, China.

Abstract: “DNA data storage technology may supersede conventional chip or magnetic data storage medium, providing long-term stability, high density, and sustainable storage. Due to its error-correcting capability, DNA data stored in living organisms exhibits high fidelity in information replication. Here we report the development of a Bacillus chassis integrated with an inducible artificially assembled bacterial chromosome to facilitate random data access. We generated three sets of data in the form of DNA sequences using a rudimentary coding system accessible by the regulatory promoter. Sporulated Bacillus harboring the genes were used for long-term storage, where viability assays of spores were subjected to harsh environmental stresses to evaluate the data storage stability. The data accuracy remained above 99% after high temperature and oxidative stress treatment, whereas UV irradiation treatment provided above 96% accuracy. The developed Bacillus chassis and artificial chromosome facilitate the long-term storage of larger datum volume by using other DNA digital encoding and decoding programs.“