These physical spacers are known as L2 loops, and each insertion exposes the bases of three DNA nucleotides that are then available for the invading strand to pair to, probing for homology.

The DNA in our cells is constantly damaged, with the most severe being the simultaneous breakage of both strands that compose ...

Adding the nucleotides one by one for de novo synthesis requires between 4 and 20 min. “In our experiments, 350 bits are simultaneously copied to the template DNA strand,” Qian says.

The technique uses a long strand of DNA with a set sequence—the template—and a bunch of shorter, premade DNA molecules that can base pair with specific spots on the template—the bricks.

VAX-seq employed full-length complementary DNA sequencing using Nanopore chemistry, which allowed for accurate assessment of the poly (A) molecular tail length as well as various off-target readings.