The mechanical properties of DNA nanotubes (DNTs) are of great significance for studying the structure and dynamic characteristics of polymer networks. However, this information remains limited due to complex microscale interactions, multiscale structural characteristics, undefined pretension states, and characterization challenges. This paper quantifies a multiscale correlation between the bending properties of DNT and its structure- and solution-dependent pretension states. Based on existing experimental results, DNT was reduced to a multidomain structure featuring multiple parallel micrometer-sized DNA rods and periodically arranged nanoscale crossovers, and its global bending properties were characterized by extending our multiscale tensile model to incorporate the local crossover effect. The results not only reveal the mechanism in the pretension-dependent bending properties of DNT, but also lay a theoretical foundation for predicting and customizing the mechanical properties of DNT via adjusting its pretension state.

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• Bending
• Elastic deformation
• Persistence length
• Polymers
• Multiscale modeling
• Worm-like chain model