Laser microdissection of intestinal epithelial cells and downstream analysis.

The intestinal epithelium is at the front line when it comes to preserving mucosal immune homeostasis. There is growing evidence that the epithelium plays a crucial role in the pathogenesis of inflammatory bowel disease. Laser captured microdissection techniques offer a promising approach to investigating the underlying molecular mechanisms. This would require reliable protocols for the extraction of high quality RNA from intestinal mucosa samples acquired by laser microdissection. However, such protocols are not around. Therefore our objective was to establish a feasible protocol which supports the study of the involvement of intestinal epithelium in the pathogenesis of IBD.