Hello,
I am looking for a way to non-specifically remove exopolysaccharides (EPS) from bacteria while keeping the bacteria viable. I am working on a project where I separate cells from an environmental sample, but in my model system the non-target cells (E. coli, BL21) remain in the samples. I believe this has to do with EPS and biofilm formation.
Since the bulk of the project will deal with complex environmental samples, I would need a general protocol that would be useful across many EPS types, so something mechanical or chemical would be preferable to an enzyme.
Thanks in advance.
What you want to do is known historically as making spheroplasts from bacteria. There is literature and methodology for this, but it is old - 1960s to 1980s. The simplest method I am aware of is treating the bacteria with lysozyme, which cleaves the polysacchride outer wall. The hook here is that the digestion must be done in isotonic saline, as the cell wall serves to prevent hypotonic lysis of the bacteria.
Spheroplast fusion was used in the past as a method to get plasmids into eukaryotic cells.
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