Yes, the humble bacteria can store information just like hard drives say scientists.
According to Shipman, genotyping the bacteria could easily read the data from these living memory sticks.
Previously, the scientists had attempted this experiment but with synthetic DNA.
But working within a living cell is an entirely different story and challenge.
We write the information directly into the genome.
He says that these advantages could include higher fidelity and the capability to directly interface with biology.
Which is quite high compared to the previous record set within a living cell, which was ~11 bits.
Going forward, the kind of bacteria one uses is important.
The researchers used E. coli for this particular experiment that clocks in a fairly respectable storage of 100 bytes.
However, certain bacteria, such as Sulfolobus tokodaii may be capable of storing thousands of bytes.
This way, if that same virus attacks again, the bacteria can identify it and respond accordingly.
Therefore, the scientists spread the loose segments of DNA into the E.coli bacterial colony that had the CRISPR.
They gulped it all up essentially becoming tiny, living hard drives.
Thats quite important, Shipman says.
If the new information was just stored randomly, that wouldnt be nearly as informative.
Youd have to have tags on each piece of information to know when it was introduced into the cell.
Here its ordered sequentially, like the way you write down the words in a sentence.
The findings have been published inScience.
source: www.techworm.net
