Porous Pt-based bimetallic nanocatalysts receive significant interest in fuel cells. Herein, amino acid-assisted strategy was designed to construct uniform dendrite-like PtAu porous nanoclusters (PtAu PNCs) by a simple wet-chemical method, where L-histidine served as the structure director and poly (vinylpyrrolidone) (PVP) as the dispersing agent. We mainly investigated the structure, composition, formation mechanism and electrocatalytic performance of PtAu PNCs. By virtue of the bimetallic synergetic effects and unique structures, the architectures exhibited enhanced catalytic activity and durability for methanol oxidation reaction (MOR) and oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) in contrast with non-porous PtAu nanocrystals, Au nanocrystals, porous Pt nanoparticles and commercial Pt black catalysts. (C) 2016 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.