Bioengineered nanoconjugates have enormous potential as a multifunctional platform for biomedical applications. conjugation between biotic and abiotic materials enables formulation of nanoconjugates with enhanced physico-chemical properties, increased stability and ability to overcome the inherent shortcomings of individual materials. in this study, we report the preparation and biophysical characterization of an antibacterial system formulated by functionalizing reduced graphene oxide (rGo) with an antimicrobial peptide via covalent as well as non-covalent interaction mechanisms. environmentally benign synthesis approach was adopted for the formation of rGo, using L-ascorbic acid as a reducing agent. covalently conjugated peptide-graphitic conjugate displayed improved antibacterial efficacy against Escherichia coli with considerably low cytotoxic activity towards erythrocytes in comparison to self-assembled conjugate and rGo alone. the studies described herein are highly significant in the field of biomaterials and aims to open new avenues of research focusing on a plethora of applications as a prospective non-toxic substitute to conventional antibacterial approaches. Graphene-based materials like graphite, graphene oxide (GO) and rGO (reduced graphene oxide) have been explored for numerous biomedical applications ranging from diagnostics to delivery of therapeutics owing to their inimitable physiochemical characteristics, renewability and economical raw material procurement 1,2. Amongst these, oxygen-rich GO exhibits far ranging applications owing to occurrence of epoxide, hydroxyl, and carboxylic moieties in its structure. In comparison to GO, rGO lacks sufficient reaction sites and functional groups that limit its applicability 3. Although, rGO has been reportedly used in construction of sensors, but it has not been explored much for its therapeutic efficacy 4,5. Thermal annealing along with application of reducing agents are used to eliminate functional groups usually present on GO to produce rGO 6,7. Over the last few years many methods for preparation of rGO have been reported but most of them are time consuming, use toxic reagents and produce a low yield 8. In order to reduce the harmful effects of these reducing agents' efforts are being focussed on using naturally derived agents which are non-toxic. Therefore, it is necessary to opt for environment friendly reducing agents like L-ascorbic acid which give a better yield as compared to the conventional reducing agents 9,10. Although reduction of GO by application of L-ascorbic acid has been reported previously, but functionalizing it with biomolecules like peptides has not been reported earlier 11. Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are essential components of the innate immune system 12. They are widely distributed amongst a wide variety of life forms ranging from microorganisms to humans. AMPs display antibacterial function by interacting with the surface of the cell membrane thereby causing disintegration of lipid bilayer present on the bacterial structure ...

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