ABSTRACT

Laser microdissection is a microscope-based method to isolate one, or many, cells of interest from a tissue section. This chapter focuses on microarray-based transcriptomics as combined with laser microdissection. A quality measure of the whole assembled system, which includes RNA quality, RNA amplification, and array analysis, is to assess reproducibility of replicate laser-microdissected samples. The cardinal argument for laser-microdissection-based expression profiling is not technical, but analytical. Laser microdissection allows the user to generate expression data in a defined cellular context. Most of the biological applications of expression profiling using laser microdissection and microarrays deal with identifying markers for cell types, for disease, or for tumors. The combination of laser microdissection and microarrays is young. Since its inception in 1999, the rate of technical development has accelerated on all fronts, especially in the field of RNA amplification.