Single DNA molecule jamming and history-dependent dynamics during motor-driven viral packaging

In many viruses molecular motors forcibly pack single DNA molecules to near-crystalline density into ~50–100 nm prohead shells(1, 2). Unexpectedly, we found that packaging frequently stalls in conditions that induce net attractive DNA-DNA interactions(3). Here, we present findings suggesting that this stalling occurs because the DNA undergoes a nonequilibrium jamming transition analogous to that observed in many soft-matter systems, such as colloidal and granular systems(4–8). Experiments in which conditions are changed during packaging to switch DNA-DNA interactions between purely repulsive and net attractive reveal strongly history-dependent dynamics. An abrupt deceleration is usually observed before stalling, indicating that a transition in DNA conformation causes an abrupt increase in resistance. Our findings suggest that the concept of jamming can be extended to a single polymer molecule. However, compared with macroscopic samples of colloidal particles(5) we find that single DNA molecules jam over a much larger range of densities. We attribute this difference to the nanoscale system size, consistent with theoretical predictions for jamming of attractive athermal particles.(9, 10)