On September 17, the Biomedical Group of Takara Shuzo Co., Ltd. and Arcturus Engineering Inc. have signed the agreement that Takara receives the exclusive rights to sell the Laser Capture Microdissection System (LCM), PixCell^TM II which was developed with cooperation of the National Institute of Health (NIH) and Arcturus. Under the terms of the agreement, Takara can sell the instrument and its reagents in Japan from October 1.

Recently, gene expression profiling is becoming a popular research method to investigate molecular events in various biological processes. The approach requires more precise preparation of tissue samples to compare the processes. For example, normal cells should be removed from tumor cells to investigate molecular events in cancer, because contamination of normal cells into tumor cells probably confuses the output of gene expression profiling in tumors. The PixCell^TM II can capture cells of interest from a tissue section, and is used as a system for gene expression analysis of a specific cells in the Cancer Genome Anatomy Program which is performed by the National Cancer Institute (NCI).

The system provides a total solution to analyze gene expression and genome in specific cells of tissues. Target cells in a tissue section can be isolated discretely from other cells by capturing the cells with a laser-activated membrane under a microscope. This microdissection technology can be used with reagent kits for DNA and RNA preparation (PicoPure^TM DNA Extraction/RNA Isolation Kit) and a kit for RNA amplification(RiboAmp^TM RNA Amplification Kit) which are provided by Arcturus. The LCM system provides another powerful technology platform with Takara Biomedical Group to analyze gene expression. Power of the system will be enhanced by combination with Lynx technology and microarray technologies of the Group.

This article is translated from the press release in Japanese for your convenience.