Cultivation of Schwann cells from fresh and non-fresh adult equine peripheral nerves.

Background: Over the past 25 years, acquired equine polyneuropathy (AEP) has emerged as a neurological disease in Scandinavian horses. This condition is characterized by histopathological features including the presence of Schwann cell (SC) inclusions. Cultivated equine SCs would serve as a valuable resource for investigations of factors triggering this Schwannopathy. Ideally, cells should be sampled for cultivation from fresh nerves immediately after death of the animal, however the availability of fresh material is limited, due to the inconsistent case load and the inherent technical and practical challenges to collection of samples in the field. This study aimed to cultivate SCs from adult equine peripheral nerves and assess their ability to survive in sampled nerve material over time to simulate harvesting of SCs in field situations.

New Methods: Peripheral nerves from five non-neurological horses were used. After euthanasia, both fresh and non-fresh nerve samples were harvested from each horse. Flow cytometry was employed to confirm the cellular identity and to determine the SC purity.

Results: The results revealed successful establishment of SC cultures from adult equine peripheral nerves, with the potential to achieve high SC purity from both fresh and non-fresh nerve samples.

Comparison With Existing Method: While most SC isolation methods focus on harvest of cells from fresh nerve materials from laboratory animals, our approach highlights the possibility of utilizing SC cultures from field-harvested and transported nerve samples from horses.

Conclusions: We describe a method for isolating SCs with high purity from both fresh and non-fresh peripheral nerves of adult horses.