Laser capture microdissection: from its principle to applications in research on neurodegeneration.

Abstract

History and the principle of laser capture microdissection (LCM): LCM, also known as laser microdissection and pressure catapulting, is one of the most powerful and useful techniques in various research areas where isolation of heterogeneous cell population is required. The first use of laser as a cell operation method, was originated in early 1920s (Gilbrich-Wille, 2013), and it became widely used as a microsurgical tool in early 1960s. In the need of extremely small tissue isolation, laser beam of LCM has been modified and developed over several decades from Ultraviolet (UV) laser beam to high-energy nitrogen, infrared and carbon dioxide lasers (Gilbrich-Wille, 2013). Due to the development of its hardware, which combines a laser unit and a microscope, tissue preparation technique also has improved from manual preparation to histological sections in 1980s and this has brought numerous advantages in biochemistry and molecular biology research (Gilbrich-Wille, 2013).