Nonmonotonic density dependence of the diffusion of DNA fragments in low-salt suspensions

The high linear charge density of 20-base-pair oligomers of DNA is shown to lead to a striking nonmonotonic dependence of the long-time self-diffusion on the concentration of DNA in low-salt conditions. This generic nonmonotonic behavior results from the strong coupling between the electrostatic and solvent-mediated hydrodynamic interactions, from the renormalization of these electrostatic interactions at large separations, and specifically from the dominance of the far-field hydrodynamic interactions caused by the strong repulsion between the DNA fragments.