Re: what g forces are required to burst bacterial cells

I can't find anyone who knows the answer to your question, but there are a few 
considerations, and simple experiments that would allow you to sort this out.

1. By centrifuging you are forcing those things that are more dense than the 
sludge solution to sink, but those things that are less dense than the sludge 
solution to RISE. So if you have a gas pocket that is moving very very slowly 
upwords and then centrifuge, it will now move up more quickly. This is how 
bouyant density centrifugation works.

	How accurately can you determine the volume of the sludge before and after 
centrifugation? The weight may also decrease if you can determine that, but very 
slightly as you are dealing with gases.

2. A simple experiment would be to dope the sludge with lysozyme and determine 
if it makes a difference. Lysozyme would degrade the cell wall and make more of 
the bacteria fragile.

3. You said 2000g. Frankly that isn't much. I centrifuge E. coli at 15000g 
without any problem. With H. influenzae which is more fragile I centrifuge it at 
3000g. 

Good Luck!

David Beck
Madsci Admin