Silaffins are highly charged proteins which are one of the major contributing compounds that are thought to be responsible for the formation of the hierarchically structured silica-based cell walls of diatoms. Here we describe the synthesis of an oligo-propyleneamine substituted lysine derivative and its incorporation into the KXXK peptide motif occurring repeatedly in silaffins. N^ε-alkylation of lysine was achieved by a Mitsunobu reaction to obtain a protected lysine derivative which is convenient for solid phase peptide synthesis. Quantitative silica precipitation experiments together with structural information about the precipitated silica structures gained by scanning electron microscopy revealed a dependence of the amount and form of the silica precipitates on the peptide structure.