"Epithelial" foci of presumptive neural origin in cultures of normal mouse colon.

Patches of cells, which at the light-microscope level appear to be epithelial, persist for several months in cultures of normal mouse colon. Ultrastructural studies showed that these cells were nerve-associated and were probably derived from the Schwann cell-satellite cell group. True epithelial cells all died out within the first 2 wk of culture, and epithelial cell lines could not be established.