Tissue-specific mechanical microdissection of higher plants

Higher plants are multicellular organisms, which exhibit a high degree of differentiation with respect to their anatomy, metabolism and gene expression. Analysing entire plants or organs results in an average of information of all tissues and cells included in the sample. In this way neither physiological processes nor gene expression can be attributed to particular tissues. For revealing the contributions of specific tissues to the overall metabolism and the gene expression, highly spatially resoluted cell sampling is a prerequisite. Here, mechanical microdissection (MMD), a low cost and easy to handle alternative to existing sampling techniques (e.g. laser-assisted microdissection or glass capillary-based sampling) was tested on several plant species (Arabidopsis thaliana L., Cucurbita maxima Duch., Hordeum vulgare L. and Pelargonium hybrid cultivar 'Graveolens'). The applicability and potential of MMD for separating tissues from different organs of these plants was demonstrated. Furthermore, A. thaliana samples were, as examples, tested for their RNA quality by reverse transcription-PCR and for tissue specificity by amplifying messenger RNA of tissue marker genes.