Bornstein S R, Willenberg H S, Scherbaum W A
National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA.
Med Klin (Munich). 1998 Dec 15;93(12):739-43. doi: 10.1007/BF03044814.
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.
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.
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.
随着人类基因组的破解，我们现在面临着定义单个基因功能及临床相关性的挑战。要做到这一点，我们应该能够从复杂的组织结构中分离出正常细胞和病变细胞，以便进行灵敏的分子分析。激光捕获显微切割技术（LCM）就是为应对这一挑战而开发的。
LCM借助激光束在显微镜的直接观察下精确切割细胞，并将这些细胞无菌转移至DNA或RNA提取缓冲液中。该技术对于研究细胞间相互作用、进行突变分析以及构建高质量的cDNA文库而言是理想之选。目前，已知和未知基因的表达研究已成功用于确定组织和简单细胞特异性模式，这有助于阐明结肠癌、肺癌、乳腺癌、前列腺癌、肾上腺癌、卵巢癌及其他器官肿瘤的病因和发病机制。因此，美国国立卫生研究院开发的LCM系统是癌症基因组解剖计划（CGAP）的重要组成部分，该计划对人类肿瘤中表达的基因结构进行测序并予以公布。结合现代cDNA阵列，在不久的将来，将有可能一步分析数千个基因的表达情况并制定个性化的治疗策略。
LCM是分子医学的一项重大进展，使我们能够将高灵敏度的基因分析技术与传统的组织学和形态学方法相结合。其应用范围涵盖从研究到诊断，再到监测疾病进展。
