Rapid universal solublization and analysis of bacterial spores using a simple flow-through ultrahigh-temperature capillary device

Rapid identification of viral and bacterial species is dependent of the ability to manipulate biological agents into a form where they are directly analyzed. Many of these species of interest, such as bacterial spores, are inherently hearty and very difficult to lyse or solubilize. Standard protocols for spore inactivation include, chemical treatment, sonication, pressure and thermal lysis. While these protocols are effective for the inactivation of these agents they are less well suited for sample preparation for analysis using capillary electrophoresis techniques. In order to overcome this difficulty we fabricated a simple capillary device to perform thermal lysis of vegatative bacterial cells and bacterial spores. Using an ethylene glycol buffer to super heat bacterial spores we were able to perform rapid flow through lysis and solubilzation of these agents. This device was then coupled to a sample preparation station for on-line fluorescamine dye lableling and buffer exchange for direct analysis using a miniaturized capillary electrophoresis instrument. Using this integrated device were we enabled to perform sample lysis, labeling and protein fingerprint analysis of vegatative bacterial cells, bacterial spores and viruses in less than 10 minutes. The described device is simple, inexpensive and easily integratable with various microfluidic devices.