The reduction of chloroauric acid using aniline adsorbed on DNA produces highly branched dendritic gold nanoparticles with concomitant formation of polyaniline (PANI) in contrast to the formation of spherical Au nanoparticles in the absence of DNA. The conformation of DNA remains intact in the process as evident from circular dichroism (CD) spectra. The UV-Vis spectrum exhibits a broad absorption peak at 520-900 nm, for a combined effect of the gold surface plasmon and pi band to localized polaron band transition of DNA-doped PANI. Both the dendritic Au-PANI-DNA and the spherical Au-PANI systems emit two peaks for excitation with radiation of 300 nm and the intensity ratio of the emission and FRET peak is higher in the dendritic Au-PANI than that in the spherical Au-PANI system. The dc-conductivity values of spherical Au-PANI and dendritic Au-PANI-DNA systems are 1.2 x 10(-10) and 1.7 x 10(-8) S/cm at 30 degrees C, respectively. (C) 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.