  We investigate the electrostatic contribution to the persistence length of a
semiflexible polymer chain whose segments interact via a screened Debye-H\"
uckel dipolar interaction potential. We derive the expressions for the
renormalized persistence length on the level of a 1/D-expansion method already
successfully used in other contexts of polyelectrolye physics. We investigate
different limiting forms of the renormalized persistence length of the dipolar
chain and show that in general it depends less strongly on the screening length
than in the context of a monopolar chain. We show that for a dipolar chain the
electrostatic persistence length in the same regime of the parameter phase
space as the original Odijk-Skolnick-Fixman (OSF) form for a monopolar chain
depends logarithmically on the screening length rather than quadratically. This
can be understood solely on the basis of a swifter decay of the dipolar
interactions with separation compared to the monopolar electrostatic
interactions. We comment also on the general contribution of higher multipoles
on the electrostatic renormalization of the bending rigidity.
