A DNA based artificial immune system for self-nonself discrimination

Artificial immune systems attempt to distinguish self from nonself through string matching operations. A detector set of strings is selected by eliminating random strings that match the self strings. DNA based computers have been proposed to solve complex problems that defy solution on conventional computers. They are based on (hydrogen bonding based) matchings (called hybridizations) between Watson-Crick complementary pairs, Adenine-Thymine or Cytosine-Guanine. Therefore, a single strand (an oligonucleotide) will bind with other oligonucleotides that match most closely its sequence under the operation of Watson-Crick complementation. In this paper, an algorithm for implementing an artificial immune system for self-nonself discrimination based on DNA is described. This procedure takes advantage of the inherent pattern matching capability of DNA hybridization reactions and the notion of similarity naturally found in DNA hybridization.