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Purification of multiplex oligonucleotide libraries by synthesis and selection

Nature Biotechnology volume 40, pages 47–53 (2022)Cite this article

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Abstract

Complex oligonucleotide (oligo) libraries are essential materials for diverse applications in synthetic biology, pharmaceutical production, nanotechnology and DNA-based data storage. However, the error rates in synthesizing complex oligo libraries can be substantial, leading to increment in cost and labor for the applications. As most synthesis errors arise from faulty insertions and deletions, we developed a length-based method with single-base resolution for purification of complex libraries containing oligos of identical or different lengths. Our method—purification of multiplex oligonucleotide libraries by synthesis and selection—can be performed either step-by-step manually or using a next-generation sequencer. When applied to a digital data-encoded library containing oligos of identical length, the method increased the purity of full-length oligos from 83% to 97%. We also show that libraries encoding the complementarity-determining region H3 with three different lengths (with an empirically achieved diversity >106) can be simultaneously purified in one pot, increasing the in-frame oligo fraction from 49.6% to 83.5%.

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Fig. 1: The method identifies error-free oligos by identifying oligos with altered lengths due to indels from the complex oligo library.
Fig. 2: Column-synthesized oligos are purified on the glass.
Fig. 3: Microarray-synthesized oligo libraries with high complexity were purified using NGS instrument.
Fig. 4: The purification method was applied to a digital data-encoding oligo library.
Fig. 5: The purification method was applied to the CDR H3 combinatorial libraries.

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Data availability

All sequencing data are available in the Sequence Read Archive under accession number PRJNA698654.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the Global Research Development Center Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF), funded by the Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT) (2015K1A4A3047345 to S.K.); the Brain Korea 21 Plus Project in 2020 to S.K.; the MSIT and the NRF (NRF-2020R1A3B3079653 to S.K. and NRF-2021R1C1C2010079 to H.Y.); the Bio & Medical Technology Development Program of the NRF, funded by the Korean government (MSIT) (no. 2018M3A9D7079488 to T.R.); and K-BIO KIURI Center through the MSIT (2020M3H1A1073304 to A.C.L.). J.C. is grateful for financial support from Hyundai Motor Chung Mong-Koo Foundation.

Author information

Author notes

  1. Yeongjae Choi

    Present address: Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, Harvard University, Boston, MA, USA

  2. These authors contributed equally: Hansol Choi, Yeongjae Choi.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Seoul National University, Seoul, Republic of Korea

    Hansol Choi, Jinwoo Hyun & Sunghoon Kwon

  2. Nano Systems Institute, Seoul National University, Seoul, Republic of Korea

    Yeongjae Choi & Sunghoon Kwon

  3. Interdisciplinary Program in Bioengineering, Seoul National University, Seoul, Republic of Korea

    Jaewon Choi & Sunghoon Kwon

  4. Integrated Major in Innovative Medical Science, Seoul National University, Seoul, Republic of Korea

    Jaewon Choi

  5. Bio-MAX Institute, Seoul National University, Seoul, Republic of Korea

    Amos Chungwon Lee, Huiran Yeom & Sunghoon Kwon

  6. ATG Lifetech Inc., Seoul, Republic of Korea

    Taehoon Ryu

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Contributions

H.C., Y.C., T.R., and S.K initiated and designed the experiments. H.C., Y.C., J.C, A.C.L., T.R. and S.K. wrote the manuscript. H.C., Y.C., A.C.L., H.Y., J.H. and T.R. conducted the research, including DNA synthesis and analysis.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Taehoon Ryu or Sunghoon Kwon.

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Competing interests

H.C., Y.C., J.C., A.C.L, T.R. and S.K are inventors of a patent application for the method described in this article. The remaining authors declare no financial conflicts of interest.

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Peer review information Nature Biotechnology thanks Hyunbo Shim, David Zhang and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Notes 1–5, Figs. 1–18 and Tables 1–9.

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Supplementary Data

Oligo sequences used for the purification

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Choi, H., Choi, Y., Choi, J. et al. Purification of multiplex oligonucleotide libraries by synthesis and selection. Nat Biotechnol 40, 47–53 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-021-00988-3

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