Rewritable digital data storage in live cells via engineered control of recombination directionality.

ABSTRACT: The use of synthetic biological systems in research, healthcare, and manufacturing often requires autonomous history-dependent behavior and therefore some form of engineered biological memory. For example, the study or reprogramming of aging, cancer, or development would benefit from genetically encoded counters capable of recording up to several hundred cell division or differentiation events. Although genetic material itself provides a natural data storage medium, tools that allow researchers to reliably and reversibly write information to DNA in vivo are lacking. Here, we demonstrate a rewriteable recombinase addressable data (RAD) module that reliably stores digital information within a chromosome. RAD modules use serine integrase and excisionase functions adapted from bacteriophage to

SUBMITTER: Bonnet J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3384180 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature