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. 2005 Jun;138(2):585–590. doi: 10.1104/pp.105.061812

Table I.

Comparison of cell isolating technologies

Technology Micropipetting LCM Protoplasting-Sorting
Can any cell type be used? No, only accessible cells by microcapillaries Yes No, only cells tagged with fluorescence
How long does it take to isolate target cells from living plants?a Less than a day depending on the skills of using microcapillaries Days due to the required time for fixation, mounting, and sectioning Half a day for protoplasting and sorting
Can any plant species be used? Yes Yes No, only species that are transformable
What is the main equipment required? High-resolution dissecting microscope Microdissection instrument for LCM FACS
References Brandt et al. (2002) Kerk et al. (2003); Nakazono et al. (2003) Birnbaum et al. (2003); Nawy et al. (2005)
a

Once the target cells are isolated, RNA purification and the analysis by microarrays, PCR, or sequencing-based methods take equivalent times for all three techniques.