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Micro RNA detection in long-term fixed tissue of cortical glutamatergic pyramidal neurons after targeted laser-capture neuroanatomical microdissection.

ABSTRACT: Formalin fixation (FF) is the standard and most common method for preserving postmortem brain tissue. FF stabilizes cellular morphology and tissue architecture, and can be used to study the distinct morphologic and genetic signatures of different cell types. Although the procedure involved in FF degrades messenger RNA over time, an alternative approach is to use small RNAs (sRNAs) for genetic analysis associated with cell morphology. Although genetic analysis is carried out on fresh or frozen tissue, there is limited availability or impossibility on targeting specific cell populations, respectively.The goal of this study is to detect miRNA and other classes of sRNA stored in formalin or in paraffin embedded for over decades. Two brain samples, one formed by a mixed population of cortical and subcortical cells, and one formed by pyramidal shaped cells collected by laser-capture microdissection, were subjected to sRNA sequencing.Performing bioinformatics analysis over the sequenced sRNA from brain tissue, we detected several classes of sRNA, such as miRNAs that play key roles in brain neurodevelopmental and maintenance pathways, and hsa-mir-155 expression in neurons. Comparison with existing method: Our method is the first to combine the approaches for: laser-capture of pyramidal neurons from long-term formalin-fixed brain; extract sRNA from laser-captured pyramidal neurons; apply a suite of bioinformatics tools to detect miRNA and other classes of sRNAs on sequenced samples having high levels of RNA degradation.This is the first study to show that sRNA can be rescued from laser-captured FF pyramidal neurons.

SUBMITTER: Herai RR

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4150832 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:Different cell types and multiple cellular connections characterize the human brain. Gene expression analysis using a specific population of cells is more accurate than conducting analysis of the whole tissue homogenate, particularly in the context of neurodegenerative diseases, where a specific subset of cells is affected by the different pathology. Due to the difficulty of obtaining homogenous cell populations, gene expression in specific cell-types (neurons, astrocytes, etc.) has been understudied. To leverage the use of archive resources of frozen human brains in studies of neurodegenerative diseases, we developed and calibrated a method to quantify cell-type specific-neuronal, astrocytes-expression profiles of genes implicated in neurodegenerative diseases, including Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases. Archive human frozen brain tissues were used to prepare slides for rapid immunostaining using cell-specific antibodies. The immunoreactive-cells were isolated by Laser Capture Microdissection (LCM). The enrichment for a particular cell-type of interest was validated in post-analysis stage by the expression of cell-specific markers. We optimized the technique to preserve the RNA integrity, so that the RNA was suitable for downstream expression analyses. Following RNA extraction, the expression levels were determined digitally using nCounter Single Cell Gene Expression assay (NanoString Technologies®). The results demonstrated that using our optimized technique we successfully isolated single neurons and astrocytes from human frozen brain tissues and obtained RNA of a good quality that was suitable for mRNA expression analysis. We present here new advancements compared to previous reported methods, which improve the method's feasibility and its applicability for a variety of downstream molecular analyses. Our new developed method can be implemented in genetic and functional genomic research of neurodegenerative diseases and has the potential to significantly advance the field.

Project description:Background:Haematoxylin and eosin (H&E)-which respectively stain nuclei blue and other cellular and stromal material pink-are routinely used for clinical diagnosis based on the identification of morphological features. A richer characterization can be achieved by laser capture microdissection coupled to mass spectrometry (LCM-MS), giving an unbiased assay of the proteins that make up the tissue. However, the process of fixing and H&E staining of tissues provides challenges with standard sample preparation methods for mass spectrometry, resulting in low protein yield. Here we describe a microproteomics technique to analyse H&E-stained, formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tissues. Methods:Herein, we utilize heat extraction, physical disruption, and in column digestion for the analysis of H&E stained FFPE tissues. Micro-dissected morphologically normal human lung alveoli (0.082 mm3) and human lung blood vessels (0.094 mm3) from FFPE-fixed H&E-stained sections from Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF) specimens (n?=?3 IPF specimens) were then subject to a qualitative and then quantitative proteomics approach using BayesENproteomics. In addition, we tested the sensitivity of this method by processing and analysing a range of micro-dissected human lung blood vessel tissue volumes. Results:This approach yields 1252 uniquely expressed proteins (at a protein identification threshold of 3 unique peptides) with 892 differentially expressed proteins between these regions. In accord with prior knowledge, our methodology approach confirms that human lung blood vessels are enriched with smoothelin, CNN1, ITGA7, MYH11, TAGLN, and PTGIS; whereas morphologically normal human lung alveoli are enriched with cytokeratin-7, -8, -18, -19, 14, and -17. In addition, we identify a total of 137 extracellular matrix (ECM) proteins and immunohistologically validate that laminin subunit beta-1 localizes to morphologically normal human lung alveoli and tenascin localizes to human lung blood vessels. Lastly, we show that this micro-proteomics technique can be applied to tissue volumes as low as 0.0125 mm3. Conclusion:Herein we show that our multistep sample preparation methodology of LCM-MS can identify distinct, characteristic proteomic compositions of anatomical features within complex fixed and stained tissues.

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Micro RNA detection in long-term fixed tissue of cortical glutamatergic pyramidal neurons after targeted laser-capture neuroanatomical microdissection.

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