Combining Laser Capture Microdissection and Proteomics Techniques

Laser microdissection is an effective technique to harvest pure cell populations from complex tissue sections. In addition to using the microdissected cells in several DNA and RNA studies, it has been shown that the small number of cells obtained by this technique can also be used for proteomics analysis. Combining laser capture microdissection and different types of mass spectrometers opened ways to find and identify proteins that are specific for various cell types, tissues, and their morbid alterations. Although the combination of microdissection followed by the currently available techniques of proteomics has not yet reached the stage of genome wide representation of all proteins present in a tissue, it is a feasible way to find significant differentially expressed proteins in target tissues. Recent developments in mass spectrometric detection followed by proper statistics and bioinformatics enable to analyze the proteome of not more than 100-200 cells. Obviously, validation of result is essential. The present review describes and discusses the various methods developed to target cell populations of interest by laser microdissection, followed by analysis of their proteome.