Janus poly (N-isopropylacrylamide)-co-acrylic acid/Au microgels that resemble a "snowman", "dumbbell", and an "abalone" were prepared by thermally evaporating a layer of Au on half of the microgel surface, followed by exposure to thiolated single-stranded DNA with complementary sequences. We hypothesize that when the complementary single-stranded DNA attached to the Au forms the more stable double strand, the Au reorganizes on the microgel surface, yielding the observed unique Janus particle structures. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.