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