0000000000073630
AUTHOR
U. Zechner
showing 12 related works from this author
Novel <b><i>VANGL1</i></b> Gene Mutations in 144 Slovakian, Romanian and German Patients with Neural Tube Defects
2012
Neural tube defects (NTDs) are a group of congenital malformations of the central nervous system occurring at an average rate of 1 per 1,000 human pregnancies worldwide. Numerous genetic and environmental factors are discussed to be relevant in their etiology. In mice, mutants in >200 genes including the planar cell polarity (PCP) pathway are known to cause NTDs, and recently, heterozygous mutations in the human <i>VANGL1</i> gene have been described in a small subset of patients with NTDs. We performed a <i>VANGL1</i> mutation analysis in 144 unrelated individuals with NTDs from Slovakia, Romania and Germany and identified 3 heterozygous missense mutations: c.613…
Prenatal Clinical Assessment of sFlt-1 (Soluble fms-like Tyrosine Kinase-1)/PlGF (Placental Growth Factor) Ratio as a Diagnostic Tool for Preeclampsi…
2013
Background: Aim of the study was a critical assessment of the clinical validity of the prenatal determination of sFlt-1/PlGF for preeclampsia (PE), pregnancy-induced hypertension (PIH), and proteinuria. Our analysis was based on a specificity of 95 % and a sensitivity of 82 % for the prediction of preeclampsia, as described by Elecsys (Roche). Methods: In this retrospective study the ratio of the prenatal antiangiogenic factor sFlt-1 (soluble fms-like tyrosine kinase-1) to the proangiogenic factor PIGF (placental growth factor) was analyzed using the electrochemiluminescence immunoassay of Elecsys (Roche Diagnostics, Mannheim, Germany) in 173 pregnant women. Sixty-three women with PE, 34 wo…
Adipositaschirurgie bei monogenetisch bedingter Adipositas
2007
Surgical treatment of patients suffering from monogenetic forms of morbid obesity is considered to be the poorest investigated theme in bariatric surgery. This review article presents aspects of genetic disorders in morbid obesity as well as some aspects of surgical treatment in patients with monogenetic forms of morbid obesity (Prader-Willi-Syndrome). Gastric restrictive procedures such as vertical banded gastroplasty or adjustable gastric banding as well as malabsorptive and mix procedures such as biliopancreatic diversion or Roux-en-Y gastric bypass are used for treatment, similar to polygenetic forms of morbid obesity. Until to now there is no evidence-based data because of the small nu…
The impact of ovarian stimulation on the expression of candidate reprogramming genes in mouse preimplantation embryos.
2012
Ovarian stimulation with gonadotrophins is an integral part of assisted reproductive technologies in human subfertility/infertility treatment. Recent findings have associated ovarian stimulation with the increased incidence of imprinting disorders in humans as well as defects in genome-wide methylation reprogramming and, in particular, imprinting in mice. Here, we present the first study that determined the impact of ovarian stimulation on the expression of developmentally important reprogramming genes <i>(Apex1, Lig1, Lig3, Mbd2, Mbd3, Mbd4, </i>and<i> Polb)</i> in single early mouse morula embryos (16-cell stage). Using absolute quantification of mRNA by quantitati…
FTO and INSIG2 Genotyping Combined with Metabolic and Anthropometric Phenotyping of Morbidly Obese Patients
2013
Obesity is a major health problem worldwide. Associations of obesity with common variants of the fat mass- and obesity-associated gene <i>(FTO) </i>and insulin-induced gene 2 <i>(INSIG2)</i> have been reported in various studies. We aimed to further investigate the association of 2 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), rs9939609 in <i>FTO</i> and rs7566605 in <i>INSIG2</i>, with body mass index (BMI) and other anthropometric and metabolic parameters in subjects with morbid obesity (BMI ≥40). SNPs rs9939609 and rs7566605 were genotyped in 124 unrelated morbidly obese patients (mean BMI = 50, range 40.1-77.1) from Mainz, Germany, and in 253 no…
Spatial learning and expression patterns of PP1 mRNA in mouse hippocampus.
2009
<i>Background:</i> Synaptic plasticity is believed to be the major cellular basis for learning and memory. Protein phosphorylation is a key process involved in changes in the efficacy of neurotransmission. In long-term changes synaptic plasticity is followed by structural plasticity and protein de novo synthesis. Such mechanisms are believed to build the basis of hippocampal learning and memory investigated in the Morris water maze (MWM) task. To examine the role of dephosphorylation during that model for spatial learning, we analyzed protein phosphatase 1 (PP1) expression in the hippocampus of mice at various stages of the task and in two groups with different learning abilitie…
Haploinsufficiency of 16.4 Mb from chromosome 22pter-q11.21 in a girl with unilateral conductive hearing loss.
2009
We present the postnatal diagnosis of a de novo der(18)t(18;22)(p11.32;q11.21)pat, resulting in an unbalanced 45,XX,der (18)t(18;22) karyotype in a girl with conductive hearing loss on the left and ptosis of the right upper eye-lid. Unilateral ptosis was also observed in the patient’s 2 years and 8 months younger sister, who grows noticeably faster and appears to be a much quicker learner. After speech therapy the patient was eventually placed in normal school. The haploinsufficient 16.4-Mb region on chromosome 22pter→q11.21 contains 10 genes as well as many predicted genes, pseudogenes, and retrotransposed sequences with unknown functions. This observation may prove useful for prenatal dia…
Two independent chromosomal rearrangements, a very small (550 kb) duplication of the 7q subtelomeric region and an atypical 17q11.2 <i>(NF1)<…
2006
Most patients with neurofibromatosis (NF1) are endowed with heterozygous mutations in the <i>NF1</i> gene. Approximately 5% show an interstitial deletion of chromosome 17q11.2 (including <i>NF1</i>) and in most cases also a more severe phenotype. Here we report on a 7-year-old girl with classical NF1 signs, and in addition mild overgrowth (97th percentile), relatively low OFC (10th–25th percentile), facial dysmorphy, hoarse voice, and developmental delay. FISH analysis revealed a 17q11.2 microdeletion as well as an unbalanced 7p;13q translocation leading to trisomy of the 7q36.3 subtelomeric region. The patient’s mother and grandmother who were phenotypically normal …
Compound heterozygosity in the SPG4 gene causes hereditary spastic paraplegia
2008
The SPG4 gene is frequently mutated in autosomal dominant form of hereditary spastic paraplegia (HSP). We report that the compound heterozygous sequence variants S44L, a known polymorphism, and c.1687G>A, a novel mutation in SPG4 cause a severe form of HSP in a patient. The family members carrying solely c.1687G>A mutation are asymptomatic for HSP. The reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) analysis revealed that the c.1687G>A mutation is a splice site mutation and causes skipping of the exon 15 of spastin. Furthermore, quantification of RT-PCR products by sequencing and quantification of allele-specific expression by pyrosequencing assay revealed that c.1687G>A is a leaky…
Evaluating the effect of spastin splice mutations by quantitative allele-specific expression assay
2010
Background: Mutations in the SPG4/SPAST gene are the most common cause for hereditary spastic paraplegia (HSP). The splice-site mutations make a significant contribution to HSP and account for 17.4% of all types of mutations and 30.8% of point mutations in the SPAST gene. However, only few studies with limited molecular approach were conducted to investigate and decipher the role of SPAST splice-site mutations in HSP. Methods: A reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) analysis and quantitative allele-specific expression assay were performed. Results: We have characterized the consequence of two novel splice-site mutations (c.1493 + 1G>A and c.1414−1G>A) in the SPAST gene…
<i>GJB2</i> Mutations and Genotype-Phenotype Correlation in 335 Patients from Germany with Nonsyndromic Sensorineural Hearing Loss: Evide…
2009
We report on 335 patients (319 families) with mild-to-profound nonsyndromic sensorineural hearing loss. We identified 178 mutated <i>GJB2</i> alleles representing 29 different sequence changes (including 3 novel mutations: Q7P, N14D, H100Q), and 2 alleles with the deletion del(GJB6-D13S1830) of the <i>GJB6</i> gene. Eleven <i>GJB2</i> mutations (119 mutated alleles) were truncating (T), and 18 mutations (59 alleles) were nontruncating (NT). Biallelic <i>GJB2</i> mutations were found in 71 patients (21.2%; 67 families; 25 different genotypes). Audiograms of 62 patients (56 families) with biallelic <i>GJB2</i> mutations typically ind…
Supplementary Material for: The Impact of Ovarian Stimulation on the Expression of Candidate Reprogramming Genes in Mouse Preimplantation Embryos
2017
Ovarian stimulation with gonadotrophins is an integral part of assisted reproductive technologies in human subfertility/infertility treatment. Recent findings have associated ovarian stimulation with the increased incidence of imprinting disorders in humans as well as defects in genome-wide methylation reprogramming and, in particular, imprinting in mice. Here, we present the first study that determined the impact of ovarian stimulation on the expression of developmentally important reprogramming genes (Apex1, Lig1, Lig3, Mbd2, Mbd3, Mbd4, and Polb) in single early mouse morula embryos (16-cell stage). Using absolute quantification of mRNA by quantitative real-time PCR, we observed an assoc…