title: Defining disease with laser precision: laser capture microdissection in gastroenterology.
abstract: Laser capture microdissection (LCM) is an efficient and precise method for obtaining pure cell populations or specific cells of interest from a given tissue sample. LCM has been applied to animal and human gastroenterology research in analyzing the protein, DNA, and RNA from all organs of the gastrointestinal system. There are numerous potential applications for this technology in gastroenterology research, including malignancies of the esophagus, stomach, colon, biliary tract, and liver. This technology can also be used to study gastrointestinal infections, inflammatory bowel disease, pancreatitis, motility, malabsorption, and radiation enteropathy. LCM has multiple advantages when compared with conventional methods of microdissection, and this technology can be exploited to identify precursors to disease, diagnostic biomarkers, and therapeutic interventions.
authors.affiliation: Division of Digestive Diseases, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia 30322, USA.
authors.forename: Richard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Blatt
authors.forename: Shanthi
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Srinivasan
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D015415:Biomarkers / Q000032:analysis; D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor / Q000032:analysis; D005762:Gastroenterology / Q000379:methods*; D005767:Gastrointestinal Diseases / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism / Q000473:pathology; D005770:Gastrointestinal Neoplasms / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics / Q000473:pathology; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D005786:Gene Expression Regulation; D015972:Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic; D006801:Humans; D007834:Lasers; D042282:Microdissection; D040901:Proteomics
chemical_list: D015415:Biomarkers; D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor