Biomedical subjects

Thomas Köhler

Publications and source records attributed to Thomas Köhler.

23 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

PubMed2002

Co-expression of survivin and TERT and risk of tumour-related death in patients with soft-tissue sarcoma.

Increased expression of survivin has been shown to be a negative predictor of survival in patients with soft-tissue sarcoma. We investigated 89 adults with soft-tissue sarcomas to ascertain the relation between co-expression of survivin and human telomerase reverse transcriptase (TERT) transcripts and prognosis. We quantified mRNA expression of survivin and TERT transcripts. Cox's proportional-hazards regression model showed co-expression of both genes to be a significant negative prognostic factor for patients with stage I to stage IV tumours (p=0 small middle dot0004; relative risk 20 small middle dot1, 95% CI 3 small middle dot8-106 small middle dot4) and for those at stage II and III (p=0 small middle dot0002; 42 small middle dot1, 6 small middle dot0-294 small middle dot9) compared with low expression of both genes. Co-expression of survivin and TERT transcripts identifies patients at high risk of tumour-related death.

Adult↗

PubMed2002

BMPs induce dermal markers and ectopic feather tracts.

Bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) signaling is known to be involved in multiple inductive events during embryogenesis including the development of amniote skin. Here, we demonstrate that early application of BMP-2 to the lateral trunk of chick embryos induces the formation of dense dermis, which is competent to participate in feather development. We show that BMPs induce the dermis markers Msx-1 and cDermo-1 and lead to dermal proliferation, to expression of beta-catenin, and eventually to the formation of ectopic feather tracts in originally featherless regions of chick skin. Moreover, we present a detailed analysis of cDermo-1 expression during early feather development. The data implicate that cDermo-1 is located downstream of BMP in a signaling pathway that leads to condensation of dermal cells. The roles of BMP and cDermo-1 during development of dermis and feather primordia are discussed.

Animals↗

PubMed1992

Are persons with migraine characterized by a high degree of ambition, orderliness, and rigidity?

Participating in the study were 69 persons with migraine and 69 controls, matched for sex and age, and all being patients of a neurologist. They filled out a questionnaire purporting to measure personality traits regarded as characteristic for the migraine personality type, namely ambition, orderliness, and rigidity. No differences between groups in any of the scales were revealed using t tests, results being far from significant. No support was thus given for the assumption of a typical personality structure of migrainous subjects. This is in accordance with our findings from previous studies with non-clinical samples.

Female↗

PubMedDate not supplied

[An experimental study on freudian slips].

We attempted to replicate findings of a frequently cited study by Motley. This author had used a tachistoskope to present his participants pairs of words which had a meaning after exchanging the initial letters of each word ("spoonerisms"). In accordance with the psychoanalytic theory of Freudian slips, Motley was able to show that under the impression of a sexually stimulating situation more sexual words were read; under the threat of electric shock spoonerisms appeared more often in words with reference to electricity. In our study we tried to induce spoonerisms by presentation of short written texts of erotic, aggressive and neutral content. It could be shown that after reading the erotic and the aggressive text, slips were produced more often than following the text of neutral content. In addition, significantly more slips of erotic kind occurred after reading the erotic text, whereas more aggressive slips were observed immediately after lecture of the text with aggressive content. We were therefore able to replicate Motley's findings and thus also corroborated assumptions made by Freud on the origin of slips of the tongue.

Adult↗

PubMedDate not supplied

High bad and bcl-xL gene expression and combined bad, bcl-xL, bax and bcl-2 mRNA levels: molecular predictors for survival of stage 2 soft tissue sarcoma patients.

The role of the bcl-2 gene family members in promoting or antagonizing apoptosis in malignant tumors, including soft tissue sarcomas (STS), is well known. However, the impact of mRNA expression of bcl-2 family genes on prognosis has not been thoroughly investigated in STS. Samples from 82 STS patients were analyzed for mRNA expression of bad, bax, bcl-xL and bcl-2 by a high-throughput quantitative RT-PCR approach, using validated assays based on TaqMan technology. The mRNA data, related to glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase expression measured in the same sample, were analysed for their correlation to tumor stage and overall survival of patients. In a Kaplan-Meier analysis none of the mRNA levels investigated differed significantly with regard to their impact on survival (log-rank test). However, after including the tumor stage in the statistical analysis, a borderline significance was observed for bad mRNA expression (p=0.068) indicating a stage-specific impact of mRNA expression on prognosis. Considering STS patients of tumor stage 2, multivariate Cox analysis revealed that bad mRNA values > or = 10 (p=0.0039; RR=9.08), bcl-xL > or = 1.5 (p=0.067; RR=4.59), bax > or = 0.005 (p=0.1; RR=2.84) and bcl-2 < 3 (p=0.42; RR=1.7) were associated with a poor prognosis. Combined high bad/bcl-xL mRNA expression levels revealed a 20-fold increase in the relative risk of tumor-related death (p=0.016) when comparing the poor and good prognosis groups. There was a 14.5-fold and 6.5-fold increase in the risk for the combinations of high bax/bcl-xL mRNA (p=0.018) and bax/bcl-2 mRNA expression (p=0.017), respectively. In conclusion, high bad mRNA levels and combined values of bad/bcl-xL bax/bcl-xL and bax/bcl-2 appear to be independent prognostic factors at least for stage 2 STS patients. In the combinations of mRNA levels there was more than an additive effect pointing to different pathways of prognostic relevance.

Adult↗