Background: With the unravelling of the human genome, we now face the challenge of defining the function and clinical relevance of single genes. To do this, we should be able to isolate normal and diseased cells from complex tissue structures to make them accessible to sensitive molecular analyses. Laser Capture Microdissection (LCM) was developed to meet this challenge.
Method and application: LCM allows the precise dissection of cells with the help of a laser beam under direct visualization in the microscope, and the sterile transfer of these cells into a DNA or RNA isolation buffer. The technique is ideal for investigating cell-cell interactions, for performing mutation analyses, and for the production of high-quality cDNA libraries. Expression studies of known and unknown genes are currently employed successfully to define tissue- and simple cell-specific patterns which help elucidate the etiology and pathogenesis of colon, lung, breast, prostate, adrenal, ovary, and other organ tumors. The LCM system developed at the NIH is, therefore, an important part of the Cancer-Genome Anatomy Project (CGAP), which sequences and publishes the structures of genes that are expressed in human tumors. In combination with the modern cDNA arrays, it will thus be possible to analyze the expression of several thousands of genes in one step and to develop individual therapeutic strategies in the not too distant future.
Conclusions: The LCM is a major advance in molecular medicine, enabling us to combine highly-sensitive gene analysis techniques with conventional histologic and morphologic methods. Applications range from research to diagnosis, and to monitoring disease progression.