Sampling of cambial region tissues for high resolution analysis.

Biochemical analysis of cambial tissues, and young and developing vascular tissues, requires that well-defined and tissue-specific samples are obtained. In this chapter, we describe a general method, based on tangential cryosectioning, that meets these demands by providing samples of pure tissue from the different developmental layers of the cambial region, i.e. the cambial zone, the different developmental zones on the xylem side of the cambium, and the functional phloem. All steps, including the sampling from tree-stems grown in the forest, the preparation, handling, and cryosectioning of samples, and the anatomical characterisation by microscopy, are covered. The method was originally developed for cell-and tissue-specific sampling of the cambial region of the gymnosperm Pinus sylvestris, but its usefulness in several other systems has been proven during the last few years. At the end of the chapter, some of these applications are briefly reviewed.