DNA word set design based on minimum free energy.

The problem of data and information encoding on DNA bears an increasing interest for both biological and nonbiological applications of biomolecular computing. Recent experimental and theoretical advances have produced and tested to obtain large code sets of oligonucleotides to support virtually any kind of application. In this paper, we have developed an algorithm to design DNA short-word sets based on minimum free energy (MFE) criteria. The MFE constraint is the minimum value among free energies of all the possible structures and the effective approach to control the generation of unexpected secondary structure of DNA sequences may cause error. The algorithm is constructive and directly produces the actual DNA words of the sets, unlike other academic and statistical numbers. According to the previous values, our experimental results can succeed in generating better DNA word sets based on MFE constraint. More importantly, using our results could decrease the emergence of false hybridization reaction, and improve the reliability and the scale of DNA computing.