On reversible and reversible-complementary DNA codes over $\mathbb{F}_{4}$

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new method to construct and count reversible and reversible-complementary DNA codes over , with explicit formulas and improved techniques over previous approaches, relevant for DNA data storage.

Contribution

It provides a novel module-theoretic characterization of these codes, enabling explicit construction, counting formulas, and improved bounds for minimum Hamming distance.

Findings

Explicit formulas for counting reversible and reversible-complementary codes over .

A new construction method outperforming previous cyclic code approaches.

Upper bounds and an identity for the minimum Hamming distance of certain reversible codes.

Abstract

A method to construct and count all the linear codes (of arbitrary length) in $\mathbb{F}_{4}$ that are invariant under reverse permutation and that contain the repetition code is presented. These codes are suitable for constructing DNA codes that satisfy the reverse and reverse-complement constraints. By analyzing a module-theoretic structure of these codes, their generating matrices are characterized in terms of their isomorphism type, and explicit formulas for counting them are provided. The proposed construction method based on this characterization outperforms the one given by Abualrub et al. for cyclic codes (of odd length) over $\mathbb{F}_{4}$, and the counting method solves a problem that can not be solved using the one given by Fripertinger for invariant subspaces under a linear endomorphism of $\mathbb{F}_{q}^{n}$. Additionally, several upper bounds and an identity for the minimum Hamming distance of certain reversible codes are provided.