Isolation and Culture of Schwann Cells

The rats for this experiment were provided by the Experimental Animal Center of Nantong University. The rats were sacrificed, and Schwann cells (SCs) were isolated from the sciatic nerves. The SCs were treated with anti-Thy1.1 antibody (Sigma, St Louis, MO) and rabbit complement (Invitrogen, Carlsbad, CA) to remove fibroblasts as previously described [20 (link)]. SCs were cultured from the sciatic nerves of 1-day-old Sprague–Dawley rats as previously described [20 (link)]. Primary cultures of Schwann cells were maintained in Dulbecco’s modified Eagle’s medium (DMEM) supplemented with 10% fetal bovine serum at 37 °C in a humidified 5% CO₂ atmosphere.