Polyneuropathies (PNP) are diseases of the peripheral nervous system (PNS) whose pathophysiology remains poorly understood. Schwann cells (SC) are the principle glial cells in the PNS, and their dysfunction can lead to demyelination and secondary axonal degeneration, causing or exacerbating PNP. The study of SC can thus shed light on the molecular and cellular mechanisms involved in PNP.
Protocols have been developed to isolate and culture human and animal SC from large amounts of starting material. The isolation of human SC from patients, where only small biosamples are available, remains a challenge. In this study, we present a protocol to culture human SC from ~4-mm diagnostic sural nerve biopsies and a comprehensive transcriptome analysis to characterize their phenotype.
Our protocol allows the reproducible establishment of cultures containing proliferative human Schwann cells that can be stored, expanded, and used as tools for diagnostic applications. The authors thank Sonja Gommersbach for her skillful technical assistance. We also thank Panagiota Arampatzi for the coordination of lab work and expert technical assistance.
In addition, P.G.-F. thanks Dr. Ruben Ayala-Suarez, and Teresa Rummel, for their advice in the analysis and visualization of the bulk RNA-seq dataset. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Grant Agreement No. 764860.
P.G.-F. was supported by funds of the Bavarian State Ministry of Science and the Arts and the University of Würzburg to the Graduate School of Life Sciences (GSLS), University of Würzburg. The Core Unit Systems Medicine is partly funded (Z-6) by the Interdisciplinary Center for Clinical Research (IZKF) Würzburg. This publication was supported by the Open Access Publication Fund of the University of Wuerzburg.
Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL. Department of Neurology, University Hospital Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany Patricia García-Fernández, Annemarie Sodmann, Julia Grüner, Maximilian Koch, Robert Blum, Nurcan Üçeyler & Claudia Sommer Core Unit Systems Medicine, University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany Department of Neurosurgery, University Hospital Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany Correspondence to Patricia García-Fernández. The authors declare no competing interests.
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