Tissue Disaggregation

The extracellular matrix of mammalian tissue is composed of a complex mix of constituitive proteins. This matrix must be broken down to recover single cells effectively for culture and/or staining (1 ). Tissue dissociation and its affiliated problems were described and defined over 80 years ago by Rous and Jones (2 ). More recent reviews (3 , 4 ) have revealed newer methods for creating single-cell suspensions. Numerous procedures exist for dissociating solid tumors. They are usually multistep procedures involving one or a combination of mechanical, enzymatic, or chemical manipulations. Ideally, the dissociation protocol is individualized for the tissue of interest and evaluated relative to both optimal and representative cell yield.