Sahu, J.K.Singh, O.Chakraborty, D.Sadhu, K.K.2026-02-042023Chemistry - An Asian Journal, 2023, 18, 8, pp. -18614728https://doi.org/10.1002/asia.202300049https://idr.nitk.ac.in/handle/123456789/21929Conformation 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.Amino acidsBiomoleculesDNAGoldHydrogenHydrogen bondsNanorodsPositive ionsSnowAmino-acidsCation-π interactionsGold nanorodGold-sea urchinGold-snowflakeGrowth reactionsNanoparticle growthsNon-covalent interactionSea-urchinSingle stranded nucleic acidsPeptidesamineamino acidgoldnanotubenucleic acidpeptideAminesAmino AcidsNanotubesNucleic Acids