Enzymatic lysis, using lysozyme, has been shown in this paper to be an effective cell lysis method to release β-galactosidase from Lactobacillus acidophilus indigenously isolated from Eleusine coracana. The lytic process was developed using response surface
methodology (RSM) to optimize lysozyme concentration, cell density and incubation time critical for the release of β-galactosidase. The optimized permeabilization condition (lysozyme: 33.63 · 104 U mL–1; cell density: 4.7 % w/v on wet basis; incubation time: 10h 30min.) resulted in 1.2 fold increase in release of β-galactosidase when compared with an optimized ultrasonication process. These optimized conditions were used to determine the release constants of β-galactosidase and total protein release as a function of temperature. The enzyme and protein release constants were used further to calculate the location factor of β-galactosidase