An example of a nonspecific molecular bond is the affinity of any positive
charge for any negative charge (like-unlike), or of nonpolar material for
itself when in aqueous solution (like-like). This contrasts specific bonds such
as the affinity of the DNA base A for T, but not for C, G, or another A. Recent
experimental breakthroughs in DNA nanotechnology demonstrate that a particular
nonspecific like-like bond ("blunt-end DNA stacking" that occurs between the
ends of any pair of DNA double-helices) can be used to create specific
"macrobonds" by careful geometric arrangement of many nonspecific blunt ends,
motivating the need for sets of macrobonds that are orthogonal: two macrobonds
not intended to bind should have relatively low binding strength, even when
misaligned.
To address this need, we introduce geometric orthogonal codes that abstractly
model the engineered DNA macrobonds as two-dimensional binary codewords. While
motivated by completely different applications, geometric orthogonal codes
share similar features to the optical orthogonal codes studied by Chung,
Salehi, and Wei. The main technical difference is the importance of 2D geometry
in defining codeword orthogonality.Comment: Accepted to appear in IEEE Transactions on Molecular, Biological, and
Multi-Scale Communication
