FIG. 5.

Schematic illustrating different mechanical lysis mechanisms. (a) Lysis by sharp nanofeatures. To enable lysis using this mechanism, the channel size has to be slightly smaller than the cell diameter. Cells are punctured by sharp features lining the walls as they are driven by flow and squeezed into the channel. (b) Lysis by compression. Devices leveraging this approach are equipped with a flow channel and a control channel segregated by a flexible membrane. When the control channel is pressurized, single cells sitting in the flow channel is compressed by the deflected membrane and finally lysed.