Comparative Analysis of Conventional Cell Lysis Techniques to Electrochemical Cell Lysis using the Liquid Microjunction Surface Sampling Probe

Cell lysis is a critical step in the analysis of cellular components, influencing the efficiency, reproducibility, and integrity of biomolecular extractions. Conventional lysis techniques, including mechanical and chemical methods, often present trade-offs between throughput, scalability, and sample integrity. Mechanical approaches such as bead milling and sonication can efficiently disrupt cells but suffer from issues such as back-mixing and biomolecule degradation. Chemical lysis techniques, while effective at preserving nucleic acids, require additional purification steps to remove residual chemicals that may interfere with downstream analyses. Electrochemical lysis (ECL) has emerged as a promising alternative, leveraging the electrochemical lysis of phosphate buffered saline (PBS) to induce membrane disruption at low potentials (2 to 5 V). ECL minimizes sample perturbation and aligns with green chemistry principles by reducing solvent and reagent consumption. This study evaluates ECL alongside conventional cell lysis methods using microbiological, electrochemical, and mass spectrometry (MS) analyses, using the Liquid Microjunction Surface Sampling Probe (LMJ SSP) for MS data acquisition. Cell lysates prepared using ECL were more reproducible samples abundant in diverse biomolecules compared to conventional methods. The integration of ECL with the LMJ SSP- MS has enabled rapid biochemical characterization with minimal sample preparation, direct sample introduction, and improved workflow efficiency.