Isolating bronchial epithelial cell preparations from gross lung specimens.

Tissue microdissection is appropriate for separating pure cells from heterogeneous tissues. Recently, we have focused on whole genome DNA methylation patterns of lung squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) and needed to obtain the appropriate counterpart cells of lung SCC. However, in some regions of human tissues, such as in bronchial epithelium, it is difficult to apply tissue microdissection as a means to isolate pure cells from a heterogenous mixture of cells. Accordingly, we developed the pop brush method to retrieve sufficient amounts of pure bronchial epithelium from gross lung specimens, and this method enables us to study epigenetic variations of lung SCC.