Isolating bronchial epithelial cell preparations from gross lung specimens

Abstract

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.

Genome-Wide Analysis of DNA Methylation and the Gene Expression Change in Lung Cancer

“…In this experiment, we used normal bronchial epithelial cells as a normal control for the SCC paraffin block samples, and we used the method we reported in 2008. 35 With this process, we could confirm the similar DNA methylation pattern with those from the 20 frozen tissue samples in four genes: CCDC37, CYTL1, LMO3, and SERPINB5. On the other hand, two genes, CDO1 and SLIT2, showed different results from that of the 20 frozen tissue samples, as is presented in Table 5.…”