gms | German Medical Science

Introduction: Molecular and cellular research is one of the important aspects for the development of novel treatment modalities in tumor management. A high recurrence rate has been observed after vestibular schwannoma surgery. Thus, an intraoperative method for exact border definition and distinction from healthy nerve tissue is essential. Furthermore, in vitro chararachterization of tumor tissue may enable progress in knowledge of tumorigenesis and pharmacological therapy. Hence, our objective is to establish a primary dissociated vestibular schwannoma (VS) culture.

Methods: Fresh human tumor specimens were transferred in neuromedium and dissociated for cell culture. For cultivation, neuromedium supplemented with B27, FCS, glucose, DNAse and penicillin. Wells were incubated at 37°C with 5% CO₂ and 100% humidity. Cell cultures were observed every day microscopically and medium was changed each 2 day. After an average cultivation period of 10 days, the cells were fixed and analyzed by immunocytochemistry.

Result: The different cell type present in the schwannoma culture. They were identified immunocytochemistrically using antibodies against S100, MAG and GFAP for Schwann cells and against Tuj1 for neurons. All derived cultures were positive for S100. Only 80% were positive for GFAP and 90% for MAG. About 10% of the tumors were stained for TUJ1.

Conclusion: We described a method for obtaining short-term, primary VS cultures. Such VS cultures, retaining their in vivo phenotype, are extremely useful as an in vitro model to study the pathobiology and behavior of VS.

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