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Updated: Apr 28, 2026

DNA Nanotubes as a Versatile Tool to Study Semiflexible Polymers
Published on: October 25, 2017
Enhanced electrohydrodynamic collapse of DNA due to dilute polymers
C Benjamin Renner1, Ning Du2, Patrick S Doyle3
1Department of Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA.
Abstract:
We experimentally demonstrate that addition of small, charge-neutral polymers to a buffer solution can promote compression of dilute solutions of single electrophoresing DNA. This phenomenon contrasts with the observed extension of DNA during capillary electrophoresis in dilute solutions of high molecular weight polymers. We propose these discrepancies in micron-scale DNA configurations arise from different nano-scale DNA-polymer collision events, controlled by solute polymer properties. We build upon theories previously proposed for intermolecular DNA aggregation in polymer-free solutions to develop scaling theories that describe trends seen in our data for intramolecular DNA compaction in dilute polymer solutions.
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