Given the previously established crosslinking character of spherical QD-DiMan with DC-SIGNR, any deviation in binding mode induced by QRs, with a similar radius and chemical composition, is likely to be imparted by the central cylindrical section, where the glycan display differs most from that of QDs. Therefore, simultaneous binding of DC-SIGN is most likely to occur in central cylindrical region of the QR while crosslinking is more likely to occur at the spherical ends. This can be investigated by analyzing how the QR-DiMan particles orient themselves with respect to each other in the presence of crosslinking DC-SIGNR. This was achieved by measuring the center-center nearest neighbor distance (ccNND; the shortest distance between the center of one QR with that of its nearest neighbor) for all QRs with a ppNND between 4.0 ± 1.1 to 6.7 ± 1.0 nm. As expected, no clear ccNND distribution was observed for QR-DiMan•DC-SIGN complexes (Figure ). In sharp contrast, for QR-DiMan•DC-SIGNR, three discrete distributions were obtained with Gaussian fits with ccNNDs of 8.9 ± 1.2, 13.5 ± 2.4, and 19.3 ± 1.0 nm (mean ± ½FWHM; Figure ; Table ), respectively. These distributions are representative of QRs which are stacked either parallel (i.e. center to center), perpendicular (i.e. end to center) or adjacent (i.e. end to end) to one another, respectively (as depicted in Figure ).