Analysis of cutaneous somatic mosaicism.

Laser Dissection Microscopy (LDM) is a valuable technique to identify the genetic event that underlies cutaneous mosaicism. Isolation of a selected cell population is key to the detection of a somatic mutation. Advantages of the LDM technique are that stored skin biopsies can be analyzed without the necessity of culturing cells. Here, we describe the preparation of skin sections and cells for LDM, followed by dissection, and subsequent DNA and RNA analysis in order to detect the underlying somatic mutation.