Leica LMD Systems Laser Microdissection Microscopes

Please contact your local Leica sales representative. We will arrange everything for you. 

Generally, you can use the consumables which you already have in your lab. There is a variety of consumables which is presented in the Science Lab article Application-specific Consumables for Laser Microdissection.

You get the best samples possible, since collection via gravity is contact-free and therefore contamination-free as proven in many scientific publications. You also exclude cross-contamination as the sample is never in direct contact with the specimen or specimen carrier. And you can choose the collection device, as no special cost-intensive adhesive treatment is needed to capture dissectates against gravity. Through gravity, the dissected area simply drops directly into a standard tube cap or other collection vessel. No additional step is needed, you save time, and you can even dissect many samples for one experiment, either pooled into the same collection vessel or separated into different collection vessels.

We move the laser, not the sample. You can compare this to cutting something out from paper: You move the scissors (the laser) while the paper (the sample) remains fixed. Both Leica LMD systems offer a guided laser focus, which is achieved with a prism bridge, and collect the dissectate simply via gravity into a standard collection vessel below the sample. Simple, smart and effective!

This method is explained on Science Lab in the tutorial "How to achieve fast precise cutting lines in laser microdissection".

The only limit for the LMD7 are three-dimensional structures which cannot be dissected and collected cleanly with any laser capture device. Also non UV-absorbable samples and very thick, wet samples such as one-millimeter brain slices in media are too challenging for the system.

You can perfectly dissect any kind of sample independent of its size or shape. And you are really fast with the Leica LMD7: The laser beam moves fast and becomes even more efficient with the pulse frequency adjustment. Collection of the dissectates via gravity is the icing on the cake – no further handling required, but off with the sample to further analysis.

The LMD7 is the best choice for multi-user facilities as the laser can easily be adjusted to any kind of sample and application ranging from subcellular structures like chromosomes up to wood sections of several hundred micrometers thickness.

The Leica LMD6 has lower laser power and less laser controls than the Leica LMD7. It is therefore less flexible than the Leica LMD7. Thick and hard tissues may pose problems to the systems – either they cannot be dissected quickly or maybe not at all. This very much depends on the thickness and kind of sample. If you have any questions on which systems to choose for your application, please do not hesitate to contact us.

You can perfectly dissect soft tissues such as brain, liver, or kidney, independent of its size or shape with the Leica LMD6. The laser beam movement makes cutting fast and the collection of dissectates via gravity even increases the application speed since the sample is ready for further analysis directly after collection.

The laser makes the difference. The laser of the Leica LMD7 is more powerful and can be controlled in more detail than the laser of the Leica LMD6.

Special dyes and fixatives should be uses to protect the content for downstream molecular biology analysis such as PCR, qPCR, sequencing, NGS, MALDI-/SELDI-TOF, etc.. Special membrane-based consumables without coverslip lead to optimal results in most cases. Plain glass slide can be used as well.

You can dissect regions of interest from samples. Apart from laser microdissection, the Leica LMD6 is ideally suited to standard applications dissecting soft tissues such as brain, liver, and kidney, while the Leica LMD7 dissecting any kind of tissue independent of its size or shape. Additionally, the Leica LMD systems can be used for live cell culture (LCC), for example for cloning, and as a manipulation tool (e.g. for live cell or organism manipulation), NanoSIMS or CLEM preparation.

A wide variety of specimens can be worked on with the LMD in various preparations: fresh, frozen, fixed, or immuno-labeled samples, live cells, smear preparations, bone, plant, wood, dentin and many more.

LMD is used in a wide range of research fields. To name but a few: in neurology, cancer research, plant analysis, forensics, or climate research.

More information on LMD on Science Lab

LMD is commonly used for

• Genomics (DNA), transcriptomics (RNA; e.g. mRNA, miRNA), proteomics, metabolomics, and next generation sequencing
• Isolation of single cells, cell cluster, or subcellular structures
• Absolute identification of mutations within cells of interest
• Gene expression profiling of a specific cell type within a tissue
• Identification of cell proteins during a specific physiological event
• Isolation and further cultivation of transgenic cells from a culture

Laser microdissection (LMD) is a technique for isolating specific and pure targets from microscopic heterogeneous samples for downstream analysis of DNA, RNA, and proteins. More precisely, a laser cuts the specimen at a marked site and the cutout is then collected in a reaction tube.