What Are The Cell Disruption Methods?

Liquid shear pressure:

Breaking cells by rapid pressure drop caused by transferring a sample from a high pressure chamber to a low pressure chamber

Advantages: fast and effective crushing, suitable for large volume cell breakage

Disadvantages: can cause the sample temperature to rise (cooling system is required for operation)

Ultrasound

Crushing cells by high frequency ultrasonic disruption

Advantages: simple operation

Disadvantages: It can cause the temperature of the sample to rise, it is difficult to cool down through the cooling system, the shear force may cause protein damage, the noise is louder, and the amount of breakage is small.

Glass beads

Grinding cells with agitation of glass beads

Advantages: Very useful for cells that are difficult to break, such as yeast

Disadvantages: Some are slow and noisy

Osmotic pressure

From high osmotic pressure to low osmotic pressure medium

Advantages: easy to operate, low cost

Disadvantages: only for cells with weak outer walls (such as animal cells)

Repeated freezing and thawing

Breaking cells by repeatedly forming ice crystals; usually lysing cells under enzymatic method

Advantages: easy to operate, low cost, and a lot of cell membrane fragments

Disadvantages: slow, may damage sensitive proteins or disrupt the interaction between protein and cell membrane, low yield

Enzymatic cleavage

Often used in conjunction with other technologies, such as repeated freeze-thaw or osmotic crushing; lysozyme is the most commonly used enzyme for breaking bacterial cell walls.

Advantages: mild, can produce large cell membrane fragments

Disadvantages: slow, low yield