Fig 6. Half-lives of a 150 nucleotides long DNA fragment stored in various conditions.

The half-life of a DNA sample left unprotected from the atmosphere at room temperature (a) or in an Eppendorf closed tube (b) has been calculated from our previous work [7]. The one of a sample encapsulated in silica nanoparticles (g), deposited on FTA card paper (i) or included in Biomatrica DNAstable (h) has been estimated from [28] (Fig 2B). The half-life of DNA dried with calcium phosphate (e) and encapsulated in magnetic silica nanoparticles (f) have been estimated, respectively from [29] (Fig 3B) and [19] (Fig 5) assuming an exponential decay and an activation energy of 155 kJ/mol. The half-life for DNA stored in Gentegra (d) or trehalose (c) was taken from [29] (Fig 2B). In grey: Current commercialized procedures.