Coursera Flash Sale
40% Off Coursera Plus for 3 Months!
Grab it
Learn how to optimize composite DNA letters for high-density information storage in this 20-minute conference presentation from the 2025 Storage and Computing with DNA Conference. Explore the extension of DNA's traditional 4-base alphabet through composite DNA letters—mixtures of normal bases in predefined ratios that significantly increase information density. Discover photolithographic synthesis techniques using modified phosphoramidites with BzNPPOC as the 5′ photolabile protecting group for large-scale DNA synthesis on microarrays. Examine how two- to four-base mixtures with equimolar or non-equimolar ratios create an extended alphabet, where different mixing ratios of identical bases contribute additional alphabet characters. Understand the generation methods for specific ratios through on-the-fly mixing or manual mixing approaches. Analyze sequencing techniques that read random coupling of individual mixture components, where read ratios represent base occurrence in mixtures, demonstrated through C and T base examples. Study sequence design optimization using Kullback-Leibler divergence analysis to achieve complete overlap between designed and observed read sequences. Investigate the successful identification of composites with 0.1 ratio differences and explore synthesis and sequencing limits of composite systems. Gain insights into specific requirements for sequence design and mixing ratios, particularly focusing on applications using only three or two different phosphoramidites in mixtures, presented by Mark Somoza from the Leibniz Institute for Food Systems Biology at the Technical University of Munich.
