Question

Why don't we just use a detergent to lyse the RBCs?

Answer 1

Ans:

• Detergent alone was not suitable for lysis of RBCs, while a mixture of chemical surfactants and biological reagents, can disintegrate the cell membrane and lyse various kinds of micro-organism. For lysing bacterial cells, first the cell wall has to be broken down in order to access the cell membrane. Detergents are often used along with lysozymes for lysing bacteria.
• Ionic detergent such as SDS is widely used for lysing cells because of its high affinity to bind to proteins and denature them quickly. It is used in gel electrophoresis and western blotting techniques. The hydrophilic part of an anionic detergent is mostly a sulphate or carboxylic group whereas for cationic detergent it is ammonium group.
• Apart from ionic and non-ionic detergents, chaotropic agents can also be used for cell lysis. These include urea, guanidine and ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) which can break the structure of water and make it less hydrophilic and there by weakening the hydrophobic interactions.
• Enzymatic lysis is a biological cell lysis method in which enzymes such as lysozyme, lysostaphin, zymolase, cellulose, protease and glycanase are used. The advantage of enzymatic lysis is its specificity. For example, lysozymes are used for bacterial cell lysis whereas chitinase can be used for yeast cell lysis and pectinases are used for plant cell lysis.