Electrostatic Contribution to Twist Rigidity of DNA

Abstract

The electrostatic contribution to twist rigidity of DNA is studied, and it is shown that the Coulomb self-energy of the double-helical sugar-phosphate backbone contributes considerably to twist rigidity of DNA--the electrostatic twist rigidity of DNA is found as $C_{\rm elec}\approx 5$ nm, which makes up about 7% of its total twist rigidity ($C_{\rm DNA}\approx 75$ nm). The electrostatic twist rigidity is found, however, to only weakly depend on the salt concentration, because of a competition between two different screening mechanisms: (1) Debye screening by the salt ions in the bulk, and (2) structural screening by the periodic charge distribution along the backbone of the helical polyelectrolyte. It is found that depending on the parameters, the electrostatic contribution could stabilize or destabilize the structure of a helical polyelectrolyte.