The use of laser microdissection to investigate cell specific gene expression in orchid tissues

In the past decade, laser microdissection (LMD) technology has been widely applied to plant tissues, high- lighting the role of different cell-type populations during plant-microbe interactions. In this chapter, a method to apply the LMD approach to study gene expression in specific cell-type populations of orchid mycorrhizal protocorms and roots is described in detail, starting from the preparation of biological material to gene expression analysis by RT-PCR.