Introduction: DNA storage has become a potential solution for coping with the exponential growth of data. However, due to the technical barriers in synthetic biology and the high costs of synthesis and sequencing, the commercialization of DNA storage still faces major challenges. Methods: We designed DNA-based symmetric searchable encryption, asymmetric encryption, private information retrieval, and homomorphic encryption methods and integrated them into a DNA data encryption storage system to meet the data security needs of diverse users. This system first encrypts the encoded DNA sequence to prevent unauthorized access. Then, users can outsource the synthesis, storage, and sequencing of the DNA sequences to professional biotechnology companies, thereby reducing the cost of DNA storage and lowering the technical barriers to promote the industrialization of DNA storage. Results: The results show that the optimal BTO-DNA storage scheme not only achieves the security of random access and ciphertext operations but also demonstrates cost advantages. Compared with other advanced DNA storage methods, the BTO-DNA storage system reduced the cost per base by 2.5 to 5 times and the cost per bit by 1.7 to 4 times. Under optimal conditions, the BTODNA storage system could reduce the total storage cost by three orders of magnitude. Discussion and Conclusion: This method significantly reduces usage costs while ensuring data security, providing a feasible solution for the practical application of DNA storage, which is of great significance and has broad application prospects.
Zhang et al. (Tue,) studied this question.