DISSERTATION

______________________________________________________________________ Introduction
electrostatic component of the persistence length. In this case, the polymer behaves more as a
flexible coil (Figure 1.6). On the other hand, decreasing the ionic strength, that is, increasing
the Debye length, leads to an increase in the rigidity of a polymer 41 . Therefore, depending on
the ionic strength, ssDNA may also manifest high rigidity.
Figure 1.6. Dependence of the polymer rigidity on the ionic strength. Figure adapted from
ref. 41 .
1.2 DNA 12