This proposal requests funds for the purchase of the Pixcell II LCM 220 laser capture microdissection system that will be housed in the University of South Carolina School of Medicine Instrumentation Resource Facility (IRF). The IRF is a core research instrumentation facility utilized by more than 150 faculty staff and students from the USC School of Medicine and affiliated South Carolina Cancer Center, Dom VA and Richland Memorial Hospitals each year. In addition, equipment in the IRF is currently used by several faculty and students from the Departments of Biology, Chemistry, Engineering and the Baruch Marine Institute at the University of South Carolina, and Clemson University, the Medical University of South Carolina, Benedict College and several industries around the state of South Carolina. The 9 major participants on this proposal represent faculty from the Departments of Developmental Biology and Anatomy, Microbiology and Immunology, and Pathology in the USC School of Medicine, the South Carolina Cancer Center and the USC Department of Biology and collectively have 12 funded NIH research grants. Acquisition of the LCM 220 for the USC School of Medicine IRF in Columbia, SC will provide centralized access to the equipment for several research personnel in the State of South Carolina. The administrative plan for the instrument will be based on one that is already in place for the IRF which has been used successfully for the past several years. Administrative support for the system is excellent with a commitment to provide the space for the LCM 220, salaries for the IRF technical staff to assist with the operation of the system, and the cost of the annual service contract for the instrument. Laser capture microdissection is a technique that has been developed in the past 4-5 years that provides a method to isolate single cells or groups of homogeneous cells from a complex tissue section for subsequent analysis by molecular or biochemical techniques. The majority of applications to date have used the system to isolate specific cells from cancerous tissues for subsequent analysis of DNA, RNA and protein. While several of the participants in this proposal will utilize the LCM 220 for the analysis of cancerous tissues, others propose to extend the use of the system to analyze tissues isolated from developing and diseased heart and eye tissues. Application of the LCM technology to these tissues has not previously been reported. To insure that LCM is an appropriate technique for the proposed studies with these tissues we also present preliminary data collected with the assistance of the technical staff of Arcturus Engineering, manufacturers of the Pixcell II LCM 220.
