I've worked in both labs that used sonicaiton vs french press to lyse cells. The lab im currently in doesn't have a french press, and some protocols noted the use of french press. I was wondering if there are practical considerations I need to take into account of while doing sonication vs french press to lyse cells for protein purification.
Dear Tuam
Are both mechanic lysis methods therefore theoretically there are not big differences. Practically sonicator is preferable in small scale when you have small biomass ( up to 10-20g) and many sample to process because it is fast, simple to be cleaned and thanks to availability of multiprobe sonicator tips (up to 24 sonication in parallel) it is suitable also in the screening phase. French press is preferable when you have larger biomass because sonication decrease in efficience if the volume increase. You can easly sonicate pellet resuspended in 10- 100ml but not in 500ml.
In sonication is important that samples are mantained in ice and on the basis of sample volume, sonicator power, you have set up a specific pulse cicle that avoid increase in the sample temperature to preserve protein folding.
Good luck
Manuele
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