Probing persistence in DNA curvature properties with atomic force microscopy

We elaborate on a mean-field extension of the wormlike chain model that accounts for the presence of long-range correlations (LRC) in the intrinsic curvature disorder of genomic DNA, the stronger the LRC, the smaller the persistence length. The comparison of atomic force microscopy imaging of straight, uncorrelated virus and correlated human DNA fragments with DNA simulations confirms that the observed decrease in persistence length for human DNA more likely results from a sequence-induced large-scale intrinsic curvature than from some increased flexibility.