Growth Reaction of Gold Nanorods in the Presence of Mutated Peptides and Amine-Modified Single-Stranded Nucleic Acids

Abstract

Conformation of biomolecules like DNA, peptides and amino acids play vital role during nanoparticle growth. Herein, we have experimentally explored the effect of different noncovalent interaction between a 5′-amine modified DNA sequence (NH<inf>2</inf>−C<inf>6</inf>H<inf>12</inf>-5′-ACATCAGT-3′, PMR) and arginine during the seed-mediated growth reaction of gold nanorods (GNRs). Amino acid-mediated growth reaction of GNRs results in a snowflake-like gold nanoarchitecture. However, in case of Arg, prior incubation of GNRs with PMR selectively produces sea urchin-like gold suprastructures, via strong hydrogen bonding and cation-π interaction between PMR and Arg. This distinctive structure formation strategy has been extended to study the structural modulation caused by two structurally close α-helical RRR (Ac-(AAAAR)<inf>3</inf>A−NH<inf>2</inf>) peptide and the lysine mutated KKR (Ac−AAAAKAAAAKAAAARA−NH<inf>2</inf>) peptide with partial helix at the amino terminus. Simulation studies confirm that a greater number of hydrogen bonding and cation-π interaction between the Arg residues and PMR resulted in the gold sea urchin structure for RRR peptide against KKR peptide. © 2023 Wiley-VCH GmbH.