BioCode: Two biologically compatible Algorithms for embedding data in non-coding and coding regions of DNA

摘要

BackgroundIn recent times, the application of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) has diversified with the emergence of fields such as DNA computing and DNA data embedding. DNA data embedding, also known as DNA watermarking or DNA steganography, aims to develop robust algorithms for encoding non-genetic information in DNA. Inherently DNA is a digital medium whereby the nucleotide bases act as digital symbols, a fact which underpins all bioinformatics techniques, and which also makes trivial information encoding using DNA straightforward. However, the situation is more complex in methods which aim at embedding information in the genomes of living organisms. DNA is susceptible to mutations, which act as a noisy channel from the point of view of information encoded using DNA. This means that the DNA data embedding field is closely related to digital communications. Moreover it is a particularly unique digital communications area, because important biological constraints must be observed by all methods. Many DNA data embedding algorithms have been presented to date, all of which operate in one of two regions: non-coding DNA (ncDNA) or protein-coding DNA (pcDNA).