Error-correcting mechanisms in DNA self-assembly
Manish K. Gupta and Navin Kashyap
Department of Mathematics
Queens University, Kingston, Canada
ABSTRACT
Self-assembly is a process by which a supramolecular
species forms spontaneously from its components. This process is
ubiquitous throughout life chemistry, and is central to biological
information processing. It has been suggested that self-assembly will
ultimately become a useful tool for bio-molecular computation,
crystallography, nano-technology, and medicine. However robustness (error
correction) is a key challenge in realizing the potential of
self-assembly. Several combinatorial error correction schemes exist in the
literature some of which are provably effective under certain models for
the self-assembly process. In this work, we consider alternative such
schemes and discuss their effectiveness in controlling errors under the
standard models of self-assembly.