title: A method for isolation and cultivation of adult Schwann cells for nerve conduit.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  It has been found that one of the methods to repair peripheral nervous system or even central nervous system injury is to use Schwann cells as nerve regeneration promoters. Therefore, it seems necessary to look for a way to obtain activated Schwann cells, with a sufficient amount of numbers and purity, in a short time for clinical applications. However, the previous methods using mitogens are not much clinically acceptable, and other methods that do not require mitogens, fail to isolate adult Schwann cells effectively or require a long period of time.
  
  
  METHODS
  In this study, Schwann cells were isolated from predegenerated sciatic nerves of adult rat (one to three nerves per primary culture) and subcultivated two times in a week with the 10%fetal bovine serum supplementation. Thereafter, Dulbecco's Modified Eagle's Medium media supplemented with 10%, 5%, 2.5%, 1.25%, and 0.625% fetal bovine serum were employed to determine their influence on the density and purity of Schwann cells after a 10-day period of cultivation.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The concentrations of fetal bovine serum less than 10% immediately stimulated some morphological changes to happen in Schwann cells but not fibroblasts. Finally, Schwann cells acquired their normal shape on day 6 when fibroblasts just began to alter and die.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our results demonstrated that total cell density was highly significant (P<0.05) in the medium supplemented with 10% fetal bovine serum (950 cells/mm(1)) while purity was significant (P<0.05) in the medium supplemented with 2.5% fetal bovine serum (97%) in comparison with other concentrations of fetal bovine serum.
authors: Department of Anatomy, Faculty of Medicine, Medical Sciences/University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.
authors: Azim
authors: A
authors: Hedayatpour
authors: Aligholi
authors: A
authors: Sobhani
authors: Vahid
authors: V
authors: Bayati
authors: Mir-Abbas
authors: MA
authors: Abdolvahhabi
authors: Mohammad-Ali
authors: MA
authors: Shokrgozar
authors: Mohammad
authors: M
authors: Barbarestani
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002452:Cell Count; D018929:Cell Culture Techniques / Q000379:methods*; D002469:Cell Separation / Q000379:methods*; D002478:Cells, Cultured; D008297:Male; D008856:Microscopy, Fluorescence; D051381:Rats; D012583:Schwann Cells / Q000166:cytology*; D012584:Sciatic Nerve / Q000166:cytology*; D013997:Time Factors