900 terabytes per g bacteria
A group of researchers from the Chinese University of Hong Kong found a way to encrypt and store data in bacteria. Approximately 900 TB of information are contained in 1 g of live material. The project is called Bioencryption (see the presentation ), and it was created for the international competition iGEM-2010 (International Genetically Engineered Machine).
Encryption is carried out by the method of DNA mixing (DNA shuffle). The reading of information from bacteria is confirmed by a checksum.
For data storage, as it was possible to assume, the quaternary number system is used, by the number of nucleotides (0 = A, 1 = T, 2 = C, 3 = G).
The text is translated into figures according to the ASCII table (i = 105; G = 71; E = 69; M = 77), then into the four-fold system (105 → 1221; 71 → 0113; 69 → 0111; 77 → 0131), and then in nucleotide chain.
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iGem → 1221011301110131 → ATCTATTGATTTATGT
Then the information is passed through a compression algorithm in order not to waste nucleotides.
For encryption and storage, the data is divided into blocks of 1 KB (this is how much it is placed in one bacterium) and a 4-level addressing structure is created, with a header and a footer for each fragment.
For storage organisms are used E.coli DH5 α. Scientists synthesize DNA with the necessary sequence of nucleotides and inject it into the cells of bacteria. 1 gram of bacteria contains approximately 10 million cells, so that information can be duplicated hundreds of thousands of times by the natural method (by cell division).
Note that DNA synthesis is still expensive (about $ 0.29 for a couple of bases), and the equipment requires very expensive.
In terms of information capacity, 1 gram of bacteria is approximately 900 TB. Scientists believe that the information system created by them can be used to store multimedia files: photos, music, movies. They only warn that it is best to initially insert barcodes into synthetic bacteria in order not to confuse them with biological organisms.
Encryption is carried out by the method of DNA mixing (DNA shuffle). The reading of information from bacteria is confirmed by a checksum.
For data storage, as it was possible to assume, the quaternary number system is used, by the number of nucleotides (0 = A, 1 = T, 2 = C, 3 = G).
The text is translated into figures according to the ASCII table (i = 105; G = 71; E = 69; M = 77), then into the four-fold system (105 → 1221; 71 → 0113; 69 → 0111; 77 → 0131), and then in nucleotide chain.
')
iGem → 1221011301110131 → ATCTATTGATTTATGT
Then the information is passed through a compression algorithm in order not to waste nucleotides.
For encryption and storage, the data is divided into blocks of 1 KB (this is how much it is placed in one bacterium) and a 4-level addressing structure is created, with a header and a footer for each fragment.
For storage organisms are used E.coli DH5 α. Scientists synthesize DNA with the necessary sequence of nucleotides and inject it into the cells of bacteria. 1 gram of bacteria contains approximately 10 million cells, so that information can be duplicated hundreds of thousands of times by the natural method (by cell division).
Note that DNA synthesis is still expensive (about $ 0.29 for a couple of bases), and the equipment requires very expensive.
In terms of information capacity, 1 gram of bacteria is approximately 900 TB. Scientists believe that the information system created by them can be used to store multimedia files: photos, music, movies. They only warn that it is best to initially insert barcodes into synthetic bacteria in order not to confuse them with biological organisms.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/108858/
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