see http mecko nichd nih gov lcm lcmtap htm laser transfer and http www sl microtest com micro m u2014 04_e htm for detailed protocols a uv laser of the type described in cole et al cole k a et al nat genet 21 1 suppl 38 41 1999 is used to incise a grid pattern across each tissue section of the uncovered set of alternating serial sections described in 1 above this is done with the use of said uv laser adapted to the application end of a microarray creation robotic apparatus as described in cheung cheung v g et al nat genet 21 1 suppl 15 9 1999 this allows for unattended section incising of a large number of specimens a second adaptation of the robotic apparatus cheung v g et al nat genet 21 1 suppl 15 9 1999 adds a microdissection transfer film holder to the application end of the apparatus this transfer film holder is then used to lift each incised section sample from each grid location on each section and transfer each sample to a uniquely coded isolation tube for lysis and further processing the sample isolation tubes are arranged in spatial arrays where each tube is bar coded to indicate the x y z tissue space coordinate of the original pre sampling morphological matrix location of the sample the mrna can be amplified phillips j and j h eberwine methods 10 3 283 8 1996 amplification can also be done using pcr on the cdna produced by reverse transcription of the mrna each of the mrna samples is.