Nucleic acid-mediated gold oxidation: novel biolithography for surface microfabrication and new insight into gold-based biomaterials.

In Nature, certain organisms can perform microbial corrosion on base metals by oxidation of neutral metallic atoms (H. L. Ehrlich, Appl. Microbiol. Biotechnol., 1997). Herein we describe the first discovery of biological nucleic acids able to catalyze and mediate gold oxidation from neutral Au(0) to trivalent Au(III) under certain oxidative environments provided by mild oxidizing reagent N-bromosuccinimide or amino acids. A new biolithography technique for gold patterning is further developed.