Alabama Neuroscience Blueprint Core Center
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Core C - Laser Capture Microdissection
Laser capture microdissection (LCM) is most commonly used by researchers who study in vivo disease processes by analysis of animal and human tissues. Tissues are composed of multiple cell types that play different roles in disease processes. Researchers typically focus on the molecular changes that take place in only one or two cell types during a particular disease process. Molecular analysis of homogenates of entire tissues may mask important changes in specific cell populations, such as neurons or astrocytes. LCM allows precise dissection of such microscopically specified single cells or groups of cells from histologic sections of fixed or frozen tissues or from cytologic preparations. The isolated cells can then be used for a wide variety of downstream analyses of DNA, RNA or protein content, including PCR, real-time quantitative PCR, expression microarrays, Western blot analysis and mass spectrometry. LCM has proven to be a valuable resource to researchers. The prevalence of this methodology has grown considerably over the last 7 years, with an increase from 44 (in 1998) to over 1200 (in December, 2005) literature citations (PubMed) utilizing LCM.
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