Tissue procurement for molecular studies using laser-assisted microdissection.

Properly collected and stored human specimens offer the unique opportunity to study human diseases at the molecular level in the real in vivo situation. The intention of this chapter is, first, to raise the awareness for important points, which have to be clarified before human tissue samples are collected and stored for molecular studies. Second, detailed protocols are provided for the fixation and processing of bone marrow trephines and the isolation of morphologically and immunohistochemically defined pure cell populations from bone marrow trephine sections using laser-assisted microdissection.