A disposable chemical heater and dry enzyme preparation for lysis and extraction of DNA and RNA from microorganisms

Sample preparation, including bacterial lysis, remains a hurdle in the realization of complete point-of-care tests for many pathogens. Here, we developed a sample preparation methodology for enzymatic lysis and sample heating for low-resource, point-of-care applications. We show an instrument-free chemical heater system for rapid lysis of a Gram-positive bacterium ( Staphylococcus aureus ) and an RNA virus (human respiratory syncytial virus) using a dried lysis enzyme mixture (achromopeptidase) for S. aureus . After a lysis step (