text: DNA condensation can be induced in vitro either by applying external force to bring the double helices together, or by inducing attractive interactions between the DNA segments. The former can be achieved e.g. with the help of the osmotic pressure exerted by crowding neutral polymers in the presence of monovalent salts. In this case, the forces pushing the double helices together are coming from entropic random collisions with the crowding polymers surrounding DNA condensates, and salt is required to neutralize DNA charges and decrease DNA-DNA repulsion. The second possibility can be realized by inducing attractive interactions between the DNA segments by multivalent cationic charged ligands (multivalent metal ions, inorganic cations, polyamines, protamines, peptides, lipids, liposomes and proteins).