Computation in Chemistry: A Summary of the Development and Models of DNA Computing

The development in computer science has brought a great impetus to the advance of human society. However, as the manufacturing process goes to the limit, there is an urgent need to find a new computing system to meet the growing demand for computing. DNA computing has attracted great attention due to its advantages in huge information storage, large scale parallelism and very low energy consumption. Many different models have been established ever since the experimental implementation of solving a 6 vertices Hamilton pathway problem by Adleman in 1994. In this paper, a brief introduction to the basic principles and experimental operations in DNA computing is first given, and the theories in this field are illustrated, including the DNA sequence design, complexity of different models and the proof of universal computing power. Moreover, the models regarded as breakthroughs in the field are summarized. All the models are classified based on the specific means in conducting the experiment, and reviewed according to different classes. More detailed descriptions are further set forth for a classical model in each class. At last, a prospect is made based on our work in this area.