Molecular data storage with zero synthetic effort and simple read-out

• Published in: Scientific reports Vol. 12; no. 1; pp. 13878 - 8
• Main Authors: Bohn, Philipp, Weisel, Maximilian P., Wolfs, Jonas, Meier, Michael A. R.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 16-08-2022; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 639/638/11; 639/638/630; Data storage; Datasets as Topic - statistics & numerical data; DNA - genetics; Gas chromatography; Humanities and Social Sciences; Information storage; Information Storage and Retrieval - methods; Information Storage and Retrieval - standards; Macromolecules; Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy; multidisciplinary; NMR; Nuclear magnetic resonance; Nucleotide sequence; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Software
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-18108-9

Compound mixtures represent an alternative, additional approach to DNA and synthetic sequence-defined macromolecules in the field of non-conventional molecular data storage, which may be useful depending on the target application. Here, we report a fast and efficient method for information storage in molecular mixtures by the direct use of commercially available chemicals and thus, zero synthetic steps need to be performed. As a proof of principle, a binary coding language is used for encoding words in ASCII or black and white pixels of a bitmap. This way, we stored a 25 × 25-pixel QR code (625 bits) and a picture of the same size. Decoding of the written information is achieved via spectroscopic (
1
H NMR) or chromatographic (gas chromatography) analysis. In addition, for a faster and automated read-out of the data, we developed a decoding software, which also orders the data sets according to an internal “ordering” standard. Molecular keys or anticounterfeiting are possible areas of application for information-containing compound mixtures.