Immunoguided Microdissection Techniques

Over the past 15 years, laser-based microdissection has improved the precision by which scientists can procure cells of interest from a heterogeneous tissue section. However, for studies that require a large amount of material (e.g., proteomics) or for cells that are scattered and difficult to identify by standard histological stains, an immunostain-based, automated approach becomes essential. In this chapter, we discuss the use of immunohistochemistry (IHC) and immunofluorescence (IF) to guide the microdissection process via manual and software-driven auto-dissection methods. Although technical challenges still exist with these innovative approaches, we present here methods and protocols to successfully perform immuno-based microdissection on commercially available laser dissection systems.