hexABC seeking the physical code of DNA

Abstract

We present a tour de force of atomistic molecular dynamics simulations involving the coordinated effort of 14 research groups of the Ascona B-DNA Consortium (ABC). This initiative provides a complete characterization of the 2080 DNA hexamers embedded in 190 carefully selected 20-mer duplexes, each simulated in replicate for at least 10 microseconds in explicit solvent. The consortium generates 0.25 petabytes of data, capturing millisecond-scale ensembles at the oligomer level and dynamics up to 10−1 seconds at the base-pair level. Analysis yields a comprehensive description of sequence-dependent DNA properties, including rare events such as backbone transitions, reversible base-pair changes, and partial unfolding. Processing these atomistic ensembles reveals a hidden physical code of DNA, helping explain rules of genome composition and evolution beyond coding regions. This community effort delivers unprecedented, validated FAIR data to support coarse-grained and AI models of DNA at cellular scale.