UV-Vis Spectrophotometric Analysis of DNA Retrieval for DNA Storage Applications
Aamir Minhas-Khan,
Morteza Ghafar-Zadeh,
Tina Shaffaf,
Saghi Forouhi,
Anthony Scime,
Sebastian Magierowski,
Ebrahim Ghafar-Zadeh
Affiliations
Aamir Minhas-Khan
Biologically Inspired Sensors and Actuators (BioSA), Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), Lassonde School of Engineering, York University, Toronto, ON M3J 1P3, Canada
Morteza Ghafar-Zadeh
Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, York University, Toronto, ON M3J 1P3, Canada
Tina Shaffaf
Biologically Inspired Sensors and Actuators (BioSA), Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), Lassonde School of Engineering, York University, Toronto, ON M3J 1P3, Canada
Saghi Forouhi
Biologically Inspired Sensors and Actuators (BioSA), Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), Lassonde School of Engineering, York University, Toronto, ON M3J 1P3, Canada
Anthony Scime
Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, York University, Toronto, ON M3J 1P3, Canada
Sebastian Magierowski
Electronic Machine Intelligence Lab (EMIL), Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), Lassonde School of Engineering, York University, Toronto, ON M3J 1P3, Canada
Ebrahim Ghafar-Zadeh
Biologically Inspired Sensors and Actuators (BioSA), Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), Lassonde School of Engineering, York University, Toronto, ON M3J 1P3, Canada
Informational Deoxyribonucleic Acid (iDNA) has gained the attention of many researchers and pioneer companies for the development of novel storage systems for the long-term and high-density storing of information. This research focuses on the physical storage of iDNA strands to address some of the current challenges by evaluating the accuracy of the process of iDNA retrieval from the surface after the dehydration process. For this aim, a UV-Vis spectrophotometric technique was used to measure the concentration of the DNA samples. Although spectroscopy has been widely employed for the evaluation of DNA concentration and contamination in a solution, it has not been used to investigate dry-state DNA, which is one of the preferred storage formats for the long-term retention of information. These results demonstrate that the UV-Vis spectrophotometric technique can be used to accurately measure dry-state DNA before the retrieval and its residues after the DNA retrieval process. This paper further examines the storage/retrieval process by investigating the relationship between the storage time and the amount of retrieved DNA or the DNA residue left on various surfaces. Based on the experimental results demonstrated and discussed in this paper, UV-Vis spectrophotometry can be used for monitoring dry-state DNA with a high accuracy larger than 98%. Moreover, these results reveal that the hydrophilicity and hydrophobicity of the surface do not significantly affect DNA retrieval over a one-month time period.
