TY - JOUR
T1 - Polus
T2 - a context-aware enhancement framework for DNA storage via transformer-based soft-decision decoding
AU - Ding, Lulu
AU - Wang, Kun
AU - Zhang, Hongmei
AU - Xie, Shaohui
AU - Wang, Jinlong
AU - Liu, Bo
AU - Wang, Guohua
AU - Liu, Ling
AU - Zhu, Zexuan
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2026. Published by Oxford University Press. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
PY - 2026/8
Y1 - 2026/8
N2 - Motivation: DNA storage offers exceptional information density and archival longevity but is constrained by complex biochemical noise inherent to synthesis, storage, and sequencing. Conventional hard-decision error-correction schemes often rely on excessive redundancy to mitigate these imperfections, which significantly compromises storage efficiency and density. Results: We present Polus, a Transformer-based enhancement framework that improves digital reliability through soft-decision decoding (SDD) without requiring encoder modification. At its core is SeqFormer, a Transformer-based channel model that synergizes sequence context with quality signals to generate calibrated per-base confidence scores, effectively transforming uncertain biochemical noise into informative “soft” erasures. In in silico benchmarks, Polus significantly upgrades mainstream DNA storage codecs. It reduces the sequencing coverage required for DNA Fountain by 38.9%—increasing effective physical density by approximately 80%—and eliminates persistent indel-induced errors in the Yin–Yang codec. Furthermore, it enables a targeted resequencing strategy that achieves full recovery with 99.9% less overhead than uniform deepening. Moreover, a nine-metric evaluation suite was employed to provide multi-dimensional quantitative comparisons of DNA storage codecs across reliability, density, and cost. Collectively, Polus provides a reproducible framework for context-aware decoding and system design guidance for DNA storage. Availability and implementation: All source code of the Polus, including the SeqFormer implementation, codec algorithms, test data used, and the simulation pipeline is available on GitHub (https://github.com/dinglulu/Polus) and Zenodo (https://zenodo.org/communities/bioinfoszu/). A web hosted instance of Polus is available at https://polus.bioailab.net/polls/home. The SeqFormer model is also released as a standalone repository at https://github.com/dinglulu/SeqFormer and https://zenodo.org/communities/bioinfoszu/.
AB - Motivation: DNA storage offers exceptional information density and archival longevity but is constrained by complex biochemical noise inherent to synthesis, storage, and sequencing. Conventional hard-decision error-correction schemes often rely on excessive redundancy to mitigate these imperfections, which significantly compromises storage efficiency and density. Results: We present Polus, a Transformer-based enhancement framework that improves digital reliability through soft-decision decoding (SDD) without requiring encoder modification. At its core is SeqFormer, a Transformer-based channel model that synergizes sequence context with quality signals to generate calibrated per-base confidence scores, effectively transforming uncertain biochemical noise into informative “soft” erasures. In in silico benchmarks, Polus significantly upgrades mainstream DNA storage codecs. It reduces the sequencing coverage required for DNA Fountain by 38.9%—increasing effective physical density by approximately 80%—and eliminates persistent indel-induced errors in the Yin–Yang codec. Furthermore, it enables a targeted resequencing strategy that achieves full recovery with 99.9% less overhead than uniform deepening. Moreover, a nine-metric evaluation suite was employed to provide multi-dimensional quantitative comparisons of DNA storage codecs across reliability, density, and cost. Collectively, Polus provides a reproducible framework for context-aware decoding and system design guidance for DNA storage. Availability and implementation: All source code of the Polus, including the SeqFormer implementation, codec algorithms, test data used, and the simulation pipeline is available on GitHub (https://github.com/dinglulu/Polus) and Zenodo (https://zenodo.org/communities/bioinfoszu/). A web hosted instance of Polus is available at https://polus.bioailab.net/polls/home. The SeqFormer model is also released as a standalone repository at https://github.com/dinglulu/SeqFormer and https://zenodo.org/communities/bioinfoszu/.
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/105046663151
U2 - 10.1093/bioinformatics/btag563
DO - 10.1093/bioinformatics/btag563
M3 - 文章
C2 - 42517819
AN - SCOPUS:105046663151
SN - 1367-4803
VL - 42
JO - Bioinformatics
JF - Bioinformatics
IS - 8
M1 - btag563
ER -