Self-trapping and anomalous dispersion of DNA in electrophoresis

Abstract
We present a high-field biased reptation model of gel electrophoresis. It is predicted that during their migration, DNA fragments can get trapped for long periods of time in near-zerovelocity, looplike compact conformations. As a consequence, the electrophoretic mobility of DNA is found to be a nonmonotonic function of the fragment size. We present experimental results showing this unique and unexpected consequence of anomalous dispersion due to DNA self-trapping in compact states.