Sample Preparation for Molecular Diagnostics by Pressure Cycling

The utility of pressure-assisted cell lysis was studied to demonstrate the potential usage of high pressure in the first steps of sample preparation for in vitro molecular diagnostics. Pressure cycling between liquid and solid phase provided sufficient lysis of yeast, a model system of difficult-to-lyse biological material. A DNA yield of 32% was achieved by one cycle of pressure changing from 200 MPa for 5 min to atmospheric pressure at -5 °C versus 10% at 15 °C. Multiple pressure cycles improved the DNA yield. The DNA and RNA obtained from pressure lysed cells were suitable for molecular diagnostic analysis. This novel lysis process is easy, fast, efficient, scalable, economical and automatable for high-throughput sample analysis.