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BACKGROUND: The selection of carrier plays an essential role in the research of applying tissue-engineering to fix the peripheral nerves. An ideal carrier would be one that is similar to extracellular matrix and that it has biocompatibility with in vivo cells.OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the biocompatibility of hippocampal neural stem cells with collagen and gelatin sponge in vitro and to probe into the feasibility of using the materials as biomaterial scaffold in peripheral nerve tissue engineering.DESIGN: A randomized and controlled trial.SETTING: Department of Otorhinolaryngology of the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University; Department of Anatomy of the School of Basic Medical Sciences of Zhengzhou University.MATERIALS: The experiment was carried out from July to December 2005 at the Laboratory of Neurobiology of the Department of Anatomy of the School College of Basic Medical Sciences of Zhengzhou University.Twelve New born (＜ 24 hours) clean grade guinea pigs of either gender with a body mass of 50-70 g, were provided by the Experimental Animals Center of Zhengzhou University School of Medicine.METHODS: The new born (＜ 24 hours) guinea pigs were anesthetized intraperitoneally with 10 g/L chloral hydrate and sterilized in 0.75 volume fraction of alcohol. Hippocampal tissue was resected from the brain under a surgical microscope. Hippocampus neural stem cells were cultured in vitro. The cultured cells of two generations were suspended at a density of 1 ×1010L-1 and respectively combined with collagen and gelatin sponge.The number of cells was counted and histological changes were observed under an inverted phase microscope and scanning electron microscope after 7 days, and the adhesion rate of the two materials to the cells were measured.MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: ①Growth of the neural stem cells and their adhesion to the collagen and gelatin sponge were observed and the total number of the cells and adhesion rate with carrier were measured. ②The morphological changes of differentiation cells by immunocytochemical staining.RESULTS: ①Hippocampus neural stem cells could grew on the collagen and gelatin sponge and attached to them gradually. The adsorption rate of collagen was higher than thai of gelatin sponge (37.17 % and 14.87 %,x2=4.819,P ＜ 0.05). ② There was no significant difference in the total number of the cells in the control group, collagen group and gelatin sponge group [(53.17±3.5)×104,(53.25±2.6)×104, (52.04±4.05)×104,F=0.233,P ＞ 0.05].CONCLUSION: Two biomaterials (collagen and glutin sponge), especially collagen, have good biocompatibility with hippocampus neural stem cells from the guinea pigs and can be used safely as scaffold materials in peripheral nerve tissue engineering.