A single residue, dipeptide, or tripeptide of alanine or histidine is covalently attached to graphene oxide (GO), and the effect of the amino acid immobilization on the impedance of GO is investigated using the impedance spectroscopy. The histidine of a tripeptide exhibits the lowest resistance compared to the single or dipeptide histidine in the KCl electrolyte, and the single alanine residue shows the lowest resistance in an acidic electrolyte compared to the dipeptide or tripeptide alanine. The peculiar behavior of the impedance could be explained by different net charges of the amino acids, chain length, and pi-pi stacking interaction. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.