Establishment of Schwann cell culture with a serum - free medium at rats of newborn and adult age

Objective To explore the possibility of establishment of newbornand adult rat Schwann cell culture with “M” serum - free medium. Methods Newborn (aged 1 ～ 3 days) and adult ( aged 3 ～ 4 months) Lewis rat sciatic nerves were harvested and Schwann cells were obtained after a differential adhesion and a three week in - vitro Wallerian degeneration, respectively. Schwann cells were then incubated with the “M” serum - free medium for one week. The rates of purity and proliferation of cultured Schwann cells were assessed by S - 100 and 5 - bromo - 2 -deoxyuridine (BrdU) immunostaining. Results After one week of Schwann cell culture, the purity and the proliferation rates of newborn Schwann cells were 95 % and 73.8 %, and those of adult Schwann cells were 93 % and 38.3 %, respectively. Moreover, the DNA syntheses of most of contaminated fibroblasts were interrupted. Conclusions With the application of the “M” serum - free medium, the technique of Schwann cell culture was simplified and the contamination of fibroblasts was effectively controlled. Key words: Schwann cells; Cell culture; Fibroblasts; Serum - free medium