Recent advances in bacterial lysis techniques for environmental monitoring: A review

Bacterial lysis is a critical step in bioassays and serves as a pretreatment to extract genomic material before various genomic bioassays. These assays are used for microbial profiling, identification, or quantification. In the realm of environmental monitoring, the effective management of microbial environments, such as soil with nitrogen-fixing bacteria or lakes and rivers with algal blooms, is crucial. To achieve successful microbial detection and environmental monitoring, we explored various existing bacterial lysis techniques. Initially, we discuss the general techniques for chemical and physical bacterial lysis that have been optimized and integrated into commercial DNA extraction kits, the current gold standard for bacterial lysis. Next, we introduce recent advancements in lysis technologies, particularly in the context of rapid, portable, and on-site implementation, where traditional DNA extraction kits may be time consuming or impractical. Finally, we provide a concise overview of developments in portable devices and systems designed for bacterial cell lysis. This comprehensive review of the bacterial lysis techniques research will improve analytical methods in environmental microbiology and biotechnology.