Design and assembly of DNA molecules using multi-objective optimization

Rapid engineering of biological systems is currently hindered by limited integration of manufacturing constraints into the design process, ultimately reducing the yield of many synthetic biology workflows. Here we tackle DNA engineering as a multi-objective optimization problem aiming at finding the best tradeoff between design requirements and manufacturing constraints. We developed a new open-source algorithm for DNA engineering, called Multi-Objective Optimisation algorithm for DNA Design and Assembly, available as a Python and Anaconda package, as well as a Docker image. Experimental results show that our method provides near-optimal constructs and scales linearly with design complexity, effectively paving the way to rational engineering of DNA molecules from genes to genomes.

Automated summary

Rapid engineering of biological systems is hindered by limited integration of manufacturing constraints into the design process. A new open-source algorithm for DNA engineering has been developed to provide near-optimal constructs and scale linearly with design complexity. This effectively paves the way for rational engineering of DNA molecules from genes to genomes.