PACS: 71.20.Tx; 73.21.La; 73.63.Kv We present a theoretical study of the local electronic properties of quantum-dot nanotubes composed of different isolated nanotubes joined via modelled junctions (defect pairs composed of heptagon and pentagon along the axial direction of pure nanotubes). The heterostructures are studied following a single p-band tight-binding Hamiltonian and adopting real-space renormalization techniques within the Green's function formalism. The conductance of semiconducting and metallic dots is analysed as a function of the dot sizes for energies close to the Fermi level. Different transport regimes are found depending upon the electronic nature of the dot and also on the contacts.Carbon nanotubes (CNs) are cylindrical molecules which are attracting much attention since their discovery in 1991 [1]. A single-wall CN may be described by a graphene sheet rolled up and determined by a chiral vector, C h ¼ na 1 þ ma 2 ðn; mÞ, with a ð1; 2Þ being unit vectors of a graphene lattice. They present unique physical properties due to the electronic confinement along the circumferential direction, assuming metallic or semiconducting behaviour depending only on their particular geometry such as diameter and chirality [2]. However, their electronic character may be changed, for instance, by introducing topological defects in the hexagonal bond network. In this sense, an intramolecular junction can be produced through a 5-7 defect pair (pentagon-hexagon) in order to connect two segments of tubes with different chirality and diameters. These tubular heterostructures offer news perspectives for nanoelectronic technology.Recently, a detailed study of local electronic properties on CN heterojunctions (metal-semiconductor) was addressed [3] by investigating how the local density of states (LDOS) changes from the metallic to the semiconducting side. Based on a simple picture, the authors have shown that the electronic properties of the connected system are related to the bulk electronic structure of the pure CNs, being independent of the junction.Transport measurements performed in single-wall carbon nanotubes deposited on metallic contacts [4] have shown evidences of resonant tunnelling through quantized energy levels. Such reports stimulated several theoretical models of carbon nanotube quantum dots (QDs). Particularly, a semiconductor/metal/semiconductor (S/M/S) heterostructure was proposed by Chico et al. [5], who showed that this system behaves as an ideal zero-dimensional device, presenting completely confined electronic states.Following the same picture used in Ref.[3], here we investigate the nature and spatial localization of the bound states of S/S/S and S/M/S QDs. We adopt a tight-binding Hamiltonian and follow the single-particle Green's function formalism to obtain LDOS within real-space renormalization techniques [3,6]. Taking into account that electron transport on the molecular scale became a topic of intense and relevant applications, phys. stat. sol. (b) 232,