Active flow-driven DNA remodeling generates millimeter-scale mechanical oscillations

Abstract

In living systems, DNA undergoes continuous and rhythmic mechanical remodeling through condensation, looping, and disentangling to regulate gene expression, segregate chromosomes, and guide morphogenesis. Here, we demonstrate a purely mechanical route to rhythmic DNA reorganization in a minimal active composite of microtubules, kinesin motors, and DNA. We embed a DNA polymer in an active turbulent microtubule-kinesin fluid, creating a self-morphing material. The active flows stretch and entangle the DNA, forming a self-organized viscoelastic network that resists active stresses and affects flow over large length scales. This mechanical feedback loop progressively amplifies velocity correlations and drives a nonequilibrium phase transition tuned by DNA contour length: from disordered flow to synchronized, millimeter-scale oscillations with vortices. We rationalize the phase transition with an active-gel model that predicts a growing length scale and an oscillatory instability emerging from the interplay between activity, orientational order, and self-generated viscoelasticity, rather than chemical signaling. The dependence of the oscillation frequency on system size and activity quantitatively agrees with experiment. Thus, flow-driven DNA remodeling provides a minimal physical route to autonomous, system-spanning oscillations in three dimensions and suggests design principles for programmable soft matter that coordinates, actuates, and reshapes itself.