Edge-outer graph embedding and the complexity of the DNA reporter strand problem

Abstract In 2009, Jonoska, Seeman and Wu showed that every graph admits a route for a DNA reporter strand, that is, a closed walk covering every edge either once or twice, in opposite directions if twice, and passing through each vertex in a particular way. This corresponds to showing that every graph has an edge-outer embedding , that is, an orientable embedding with some face that is incident with every edge. In the motivating application, the objective is such a closed walk of minimum length. Here we give a short algorithmic proof of the original existence result, and also prove that finding a shortest length solution is NP-hard, even for 3-connected cubic (3-regular) planar graphs. Independent of the motivating application, this problem opens a new direction in the study of graph embeddings, and we suggest several problems emerging from it.