Modified Culture and Purification of Schwann Cells from Neonatal Rats

To set up a simple and available method of culturing and purifying the Schwann cells(SCs),the sciatic nerve was obtained from neonatal rats by using microsurgical techniques.Nerve sheath was first removed,afterwards nerve was cut to be 0.5 mm3 tissue pieces,trypsin and collagenase were used to separate SCs by step digestion.Purified SCs was obtained after a differential adhesion at various time points(15 min,30 min and 45 min post-culture) and the treatment of cytarabine(Ara-C) in the course of passage.The purity of SCs was identified through the phase contrast microscope and S-100 immunocytochemical stain.Results show SCs grew in good state as bipolar cells with long and slim enations under inverted phase contrast microscope.Along culturing time prolongation,the SCs grew in heaps or eddy-like.Purity of the SCs with positive immune-cytochemistry of S-100 was exceeded 98% by this culture method.So the culturing method can get high purity Schwann cells from sciatic nerve of neonatal rats.