Sequence-dependent biophysical modeling of DNA amplification

Evolution of Organic Solvent-Resistant DNA Polymerases

The introduction of thermostable polymerases revolutionized the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and biotechnology. However, many GC-rich genes cannot be PCR-amplified with high efficiency in water, irrespective of temperature. Although polar organic cosolvents can enhance nucleic acid polymerization and amplification by destabilizing duplex DNA and secondary structures, nature has not selected for the evolution of solvent-tolerant polymerase enzymes. Here, we used ultrahigh-throughput droplet-based selection and deep sequencing along with computational free-energy and binding affinity calculations to evolve Taq polymerase to generate enzymes that are both stable and highly active in the presence of organic cosolvents, resulting in up to 10% solvent resistance and over 100-fold increase in stability at 97.5 °C in the presence of 1,4-butanediol, as well as tolerance to up to 10 times higher concentrations of the potent cosolvents sulfolane and 2-pyrrolidone. Using these polymerases, we successfully amplified a broad spectrum of GC-rich templates containing regions with over 90% GC content, including templates recalcitrant to amplification with existing polymerases, even in the presence of cosolvents. We also demonstrated dramatically reduced GC bias in the amplification of genes with widely varying GC content in quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR). By expanding the scope of solvent systems compatible with nucleic acid polymerization, these organic solvent-resistant polymerases enable a dramatic reduction of sequence bias not achievable through thermal resistance alone, with significant implications for a wide range of applications including sequencing and synthetic biology in mixed aqueous-organic media.

Methylation-Sensitive Loop-Mediated Isothermal Amplification (LAMP): Nucleic Acid Methylation Detection through LAMP with Mobile Fluorescence Readout

The emergence of epigenetic gene regulation and its role in disease have motivated a growing field of epigenetic diagnostics for risk assessment and screening. In particular, irregular cytosine DNA base methylation has been implicated in several diseases, yet the methods for detecting these epigenetic marks are limited to lengthy protocols requiring bulky and costly equipment. We demonstrate a simple workflow for detecting methylated CpG dinucleotides in synthetic and genomic DNA samples using methylation-sensitive restriction enzyme digestion followed by loop-mediated isothermal amplification. We additionally demonstrate a cost-effective mobile fluorescence reader comprising a light-emitting diode bundle, a mirror, and optical fibers to transduce fluorescence signals associated with DNA amplification. The workflow can be performed in approximately 1 h, requiring only a simple heat source, and can therefore provide a foundation for distributable point-of-care testing of DNA methylation levels.

Enzymological description of multitemplate PCR-Shrinking amplification bias by optimizing the polymerase-template ratio

Multitemplate polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is used for preparative and analytical applications in diagnostics and research. Classical PCR and qPCR are two basic setups with many possible experimental modifications. Classical PCR is a method of choice to obtain enough material for subsequent sophisticated applications such as construction of libraries for next-generation sequencing or high-throughput screening. Sequencing and Single Nucleotide Primer Extension (SNuPE) employ one-strand synthesis and represent a distinct variant of analytical DNA synthesis. In all these applications, maintaining the initial ratio of templates and avoiding underestimation of minority templates is desired. Here, we demonstrate that different templates can amplify independently at low template concentrations (typical in qPCR setups, in which the polymerase concentration is usually several orders of magnitude higher than the template concentration). However, rare templates can be diluted in an effort to keep DNA amplification in the exponential phase, or template concentration can be biased by differences in amplification efficiency. Moreover, amplification of templates present in low concentrations is more vulnerable to stochastic events that lead to proportional changes in the product ratio, as well as by incomplete amplification leading to chimera formation. These undesired effects can be compensated for by using highly processive polymerases with high and equal affinity to different primer-template complexes. Novel enhanced polymerases are desired. With increasing concentration of a primer-template of interest, the system becomes more deterministic. Nevertheless, marked deviation from independent exponential amplification occurs when the total template concentration starts to approach the polymerase concentration. The primer-template complexes compete for enzyme molecules, and the amount of products grows arithmetically-the system starts to obey Michaelis-Menten kinetics. Synthesis of rare products in a multitemplate mixture can run more easily under the detection limit in such conditions, although it would be unequivocally detectable in a single template assay. When fishing out rare template variants, the best processive polymerases should be used to decrease both amplification and detection limits. The possibility of stochastic events, should be taken into account to correctly interpret the obtained data.

Dynamics and control of DNA sequence amplification

DNA amplification is the process of replication of a specified DNA sequence in vitro through time-dependent manipulation of its external environment. A theoretical framework for determination of the optimal dynamic operating conditions of DNA amplification reactions, for any specified amplification objective, is presented based on first-principles biophysical modeling and control theory. Amplification of DNA is formulated as a problem in control theory with optimal solutions that can differ considerably from strategies typically used in practice. Using the Polymerase Chain Reaction as an example, sequence-dependent biophysical models for DNA amplification are cast as control systems, wherein the dynamics of the reaction are controlled by a manipulated input variable. Using these control systems, we demonstrate that there exists an optimal temperature cycling strategy for geometric amplification of any DNA sequence and formulate optimal control problems that can be used to derive the optimal temperature profile. Strategies for the optimal synthesis of the DNA amplification control trajectory are proposed. Analogous methods can be used to formulate control problems for more advanced amplification objectives corresponding to the design of new types of DNA amplification reactions.