TY - JOUR A1 - Kaiser, Anna A1 - Aggensteiner, Pascal-M. A1 - Holtmann, Martin A1 - Fallgatter, Andreas A1 - Romanos, Marcel A1 - Abenova, Karina A1 - Alm, Barbara A1 - Becker, Katja A1 - Döpfner, Manfred A1 - Ethofer, Thomas A1 - Freitag, Christine M. A1 - Geissler, Julia A1 - Hebebrand, Johannes A1 - Huss, Michael A1 - Jans, Thomas A1 - Jendreizik, Lea Teresa A1 - Ketter, Johanna A1 - Legenbauer, Tanja A1 - Philipsen, Alexandra A1 - Poustka, Luise A1 - Renner, Tobias A1 - Retz, Wolfgang A1 - Rösler, Michael A1 - Thome, Johannes A1 - Uebel-von Sandersleben, Henrik A1 - von Wirth, Elena A1 - Zinnow, Toivo A1 - Hohmann, Sarah A1 - Millenet, Sabina A1 - Holz, Nathalie E. A1 - Banaschewski, Tobias A1 - Brandeis, Daniel T1 - EEG data quality: determinants and impact in a multicenter study of children, adolescents, and adults with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) JF - Brain Sciences N2 - Electroencephalography (EEG) represents a widely established method for assessing altered and typically developing brain function. However, systematic studies on EEG data quality, its correlates, and consequences are scarce. To address this research gap, the current study focused on the percentage of artifact-free segments after standard EEG pre-processing as a data quality index. We analyzed participant-related and methodological influences, and validity by replicating landmark EEG effects. Further, effects of data quality on spectral power analyses beyond participant-related characteristics were explored. EEG data from a multicenter ADHD-cohort (age range 6 to 45 years), and a non-ADHD school-age control group were analyzed (n\(_{total}\) = 305). Resting-state data during eyes open, and eyes closed conditions, and task-related data during a cued Continuous Performance Task (CPT) were collected. After pre-processing, general linear models, and stepwise regression models were fitted to the data. We found that EEG data quality was strongly related to demographic characteristics, but not to methodological factors. We were able to replicate maturational, task, and ADHD effects reported in the EEG literature, establishing a link with EEG-landmark effects. Furthermore, we showed that poor data quality significantly increases spectral power beyond effects of maturation and symptom severity. Taken together, the current results indicate that with a careful design and systematic quality control, informative large-scale multicenter trials characterizing neurophysiological mechanisms in neurodevelopmental disorders across the lifespan are feasible. Nevertheless, results are restricted to the limitations reported. Future work will clarify predictive value. KW - electroencephalography (EEG) KW - data quality KW - attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) KW - artifacts KW - multicenter study Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-228788 SN - 2076-3425 VL - 11 IS - 2 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Becker, Philip P. A1 - Rau, Monika A1 - Schmitt, Johannes A1 - Malsch, Carolin A1 - Hammer, Christian A1 - Bantel, Heike A1 - Müllhaupt, Beat A1 - Geier, Andreas T1 - Performance of serum microRNAs -122, -192 and -21 as biomarkers in patients with non-alcoholic steatohepatitis JF - PLoS ONE N2 - Objectives Liver biopsies are the current gold standard in non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) diagnosis. Their invasive nature, however, still carries an increased risk for patients' health. The development of non-invasive diagnostic tools to differentiate between bland steatosis (NAFL) and NASH remains crucial. The aim of this study is the evaluation of investigated circulating microRNAs in combination with new targets in order to optimize the discrimination of NASH patients by non-invasive serum biomarkers. Methods Serum profiles of four microRNAs were evaluated in two cohorts consisting of 137 NAFLD patients and 61 healthy controls. In a binary logistic regression model microRNAs of relevance were detected. Correlation of microRNA appearance with known biomarkers like ALT and CK18-Asp396 was evaluated. A simplified scoring model was developed, combining the levels of microRNA in circulation and CK18-Asp396 fragments. Receiver operating characteristics were used to evaluate the potential of discriminating NASH. Results The new finding of our study is the different profile of circulating miR-21 in NASH patients (p<0.0001). Also, it validates recently published results of miR-122 and miR-192 to be differentially regulated in NAFL and NASH. Combined microRNA expression profiles with CK18-Asp396 fragment level scoring model had a higher potential of NASH prediction compared to other risk biomarkers (AUROC = 0.83, 95% CI = 0.754-0.908; p<0.001). Evaluation of score model for NAFL (Score = 0) and NASH (Score = 4) had shown high rates of sensitivity (91%) and specificity (83%). Conclusions Our study defines candidates for a combined model of miRNAs and CK18-Asp396 levels relevant as a promising expansion for diagnosis and in turn treatment of NASH. KW - fatty liver disease KW - independent marker KW - expression KW - injury KW - NAFLD KW - circulating micrornas KW - caspase activation KW - fibrosis KW - miR-122 KW - apoptosis Y1 - 2015 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-145147 VL - 10 IS - 11 ER - TY - THES A1 - Becker, Johannes T1 - Development and implementation of new simulation possibilities in the CAST program package T1 - Entwicklung und Implementierung neuer Simulationsmöglichkeiten in das CAST Programmpaket N2 - The aim of the present work is the development and implementation of new simulation possibilities for the CAST program package. Development included, among other things, the partial parallelization of the already existing force fields, extension of the treatment of electrostatic interactions and implementation of molecular dynamics and free energy algorithms. The most time consuming part of force field calculations is the evaluation of the nonbonded interactions. The calculation of these interactions has been parallelized and it could be shown to yield a significant speed up for multi-core calculations compared to the serial execution on only one CPU. For both, simple energy/gradient as well as molecular dynamics simulations the computational time could be significantly reduced. To further increase the performance of calculations employing a cutoff radius, a linkedcell algorithm was implemented which is able to build up the non-bonded interaction list up to 7 times faster than the original algorithm. To provide access to dynamic properties based on the natural time evolution of a system, a molecular dynamics code has been implemented. The MD implementation features two integration schemes for the equations of motion which are able to generate stable trajectories. The basic MD algorithm as described in Section 1.2 leads to the sampling in the microcanonical (NVE) ensemble. The practical use of NVE simulations is limited though because it does not correspond to any experimentally realistic situation. More realistic simulation conditions are found in the isothermal (NVT) and isothermalisobaric (NPT) ensembles. To generate those ensembles, temperature and pressure control has been implemented. The temperature can be controlled in two ways: by direct velocity scaling and by a Nose-Hoover thermostat which produces a real canonical ensemble. The pressure coupling is realized by implementation of a Berendsen barostat. The pressure coupling can be used for isotropic or anisotropic box dimensions with the restriction that the angles of the box need to be 90� . A crucial simulation parameter in MD simulations is the length of the timestep. The timestep is usually in the rang of 1fs. Increasing the timestep beyond 1fs can lead to unstable trajectories since the fastest motion in the system, usually the H-X stretch vibration can not be sampled anymore. A way to allow for bigger timesteps is the use of a constraint algorithm which constrains the H-X bonds to the equilibrium distance. For this the RATTLE algorithm has been implemented in the CAST program. The velocity Verlet algorithm in combination with the RATTLE algorithm has been shown to yield stable trajectories for an arbitrary length of simulation time. In a first application the MD implementation is used in conjunction with the MOPAC interface for the investigation of PBI sidechains and their rigidity. The theoretical investigations show a nice agreement with experimentally obtained results. Based on the MD techniques two algorithms for the determination of free energy differences have been implemented. The umbrella sampling algorithm can be used to determine the free energy change along a reaction coordinate based on distances or dihedral angles. The implementation was tested on the stretching of a deca-L-alanine and the rotation barrier of butane in vacuum. The results are in nearly perfect agreement with literature values. For the FEP implementation calculations were performed for a zero-sum transformation of ethane in explicit solvent, the charging of a sodium ion in explicit solvent and the transformations of a tripeptide in explicit solvent. All results are in agreement with benchmark calculations of the NAMD program as well as literature values. The FEP formalism was then applied to determine the relative binding free energies between two inhibitors in an inhibitor-protein complex. Next to force fields, ab-initio methods can be used for simulations and global optimizations. Since the performance of such methods is usually significantly poorer than force field applications, the use for global optimizations is limited. Nevertheless significant progress has been made by porting these codes to GPUs. In order to make use of these developments a MPI interface has been implemented into CAST for communication with the DFT code TeraChem. The CAST/TeraChem combination has been tested on the $H_2 O_{10}$ cluster as well as the polypeptide met-Enkephalin. The pure ab-initio calculations showed a superior behavior compared to the standard procedure where the force field results are usually refined using quantum chemical methods. N2 - Das Ziel der hier vorliegenden Arbeit ist die Entwicklung und Implementierung neu- er Simulationsalgorithmen in das CAST Programmpaket. Neben der teilweisen Para- llelisierung der bereits impelentierten Kraftfelder wurde das Programm um einen Mole- kulardynamikcode erweitert. Aufbauend auf diesem Code wurden Algorithmen zur Be- rechnung der freien Energie entlang einer Reaktionskooridnate, sowie eine Erweiter-ung der Behandlung elektrostatischer Wechselwirkungen auf Basis einer Ewald Summation implementiert. Der zeitaufwändigste Teil einer Kraftfeldrechnung stellt die Evaluierung der nichtbin- denden Wechselwirkungen dar. Die Berechnung dieser Wechselwirkungen wurde für die Nutzung von Mehrkernprozessoren optimiert und parallelisiert. Die Parallelisie- rung zeigte eine signifikante Reduktion der benötigten Rechenzeit auf mehreren Re- chenkernen im Vergleich zur seriellen Berechnung auf nur einem Rechenkern für einfa- che Energie- bzw. Gradientenrechnungen sowie für Molekulardynamikrechnungen. Um Rechnungen, die einen cutoff Radius benutzen, weiter zu beschleunigen, wurde der Auf- bau der Verlet-Liste modifiziert. Statt des Standardalgorithmus, der eine Doppelschleife über alle Atome verwendet, wurde ein linked-cell Algorithmus implementiert. Der Auf- bau der Verlet-Liste konnte damit um den Faktor 7 beschleunigt werden. Der Molekulardynamikcode enthält mehrere Algorithmen zur Berechnung von Syste- men in verschiedenen Ensembles. Zur numerischen Integration der Bewegungsgleichun- gen wurden der Velocity-Verlet sowie eine modifizierte Version von Beemans Algorith- mus implementiert. Da der minimale Code, wie er in Kapitel 1.2 beschrieben wird, ein mikrokanonisches Ensemble produziert, und dieses keiner realistischen experimentel- len Situation entspricht, wurden Methoden zur Berechnung und Aufrechterhaltung von Temperatur und Druck implementiert. Die Temperatur kann mittels zweier verschiede- ner Möglichkeiten kontrolliert werden. Die erste Möglichkeit ist die direkte Skalierung der Geschwindigkeiten der Partikel, die zweite Möglichkeit besteht in der Nutzung ei- nes Nòse-Hoover Thermostaten, der ein echtes kanonisches Ensemble generiert. Für die Kontrolle des Drucks wurde ein Berendsen Barostat implementiert. Da die Kontrolle des Drucks die Nutzung von periodischen Randbedingungen voraussetzt, ist die Form der Simulationszelle wichtig. CAST unterstützt aktuell isotrope und anisotrope Simulationszellen, mit der Einschränkung, dass alle Winkel 90◦betragen. Ein kritischer Punkt bei einer MD Simulation ist die Länge des Zeitschritts, der in der Regel bei 1fs liegt. Sollen größere Zeitschritte verwendet werden, müssen die schnell- sten Bewegungnen im System eingeschränkt werden. Dies sind im Normalfall die H-X Streckschwingungen. Zur Einschränkung dieser wurde der RATTLE Algorithmus imple- mentiert der die H-X Bindung mit Hilfe von Lagrange-Multiplikatoren auf den Gleich- gewichtsabstand fixiert. Als erste Anwendung des MD Codes wurde in Kombination mit dem MOPAC Programm die Rigidität und Flexibilität von PBI Seitenketten erfolgreich untersucht. Basierend auf dem MD Code wurden zwei Möglichkeiten zur Bestimmung der freien Energie eingebaut, Umbrella Sampling und Free Energy Perturbation. Umbrella Samp- ling erlaubt die Bestimmung der freien Energie entlang einer Reaktionskoordinate, hier Abstände oder Diederwinkel. Der Algorithmus wurde erfolgreich an zwei Literatur- beispielen, der Streckung von Deca-L-Alanin sowie der Rotation von Butan um den zentralen Diederwinkel getetstet. Die FEP Implementierung wurde an drei Beispielen getestet, einer Nullsummen-Transformation von Ethan in Ethan in explizitem Solvent, dem Lösen eines Natriumions in Wasser und der Transformation von Tyrosin in Alanin in einem Tripeptid. Die Ergebnisse dieser Testrechnungen stimmen hervorragend mit Vergleichsrechnungen mit NAMD sowie Literaturwerten überein. Die FEP Methode wurde schließlich benutzt um die relative freie Bindungsenergie zweier Inhibitoren in einem Inhibitor-Protein-Komplex zu bestimmen. Neben Kraftfeldern können auch ab-initio Methoden für Simulationen benutzt werden. Da die Rechenzeit dieser Methoden um ein vielfaches höher ausfällt als die für Kraftfel- der, ist die Benutzung für die globale Optimierung jedoch limitiert. In den letzten Jah- ren wurde im Bereich der Leistungsfähigkeit dieser Methoden jedoch große Fortschritte erzielt, indem diese Methoden auf Grafikkarten portiert wurden. Um diese Entwick- lung nutzbar zu machen wurde eine MPI-Schnittstelle in CAST implementiert, die mit dem DFT Programm TeraChem kommuniziert. Die Kombination aus beiden Program- men, sowie die Funktionsfähigkeit der Schnittstelle, wurde an H2O10 Clustern sowie dem Polypeptid Met-Enkephalin getestet. Die reinen ab-initio Rechnungen zeigten ein besseres Verhalten gegenüber dem Normalen Protokoll, welches Kraftfeldrechungen mit nachfolgender Optimierung mit qunatenchemischen Methoden vorsieht. KW - Molekulardynamik KW - Molecular dynamics KW - Molecular mechanics KW - Molecular Simulation KW - Free Energy Perturbation (1987 : Princeton, NJ) Y1 - 2015 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-132032 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Diessner, Joachim A1 - Bruttel, Valentin A1 - Becker, Kathrin A1 - Pawlik, Miriam A1 - Stein, Roland A1 - Häusler, Sebastian A1 - Dietl, Johannes A1 - Wischhusen, Jörg A1 - Hönig, Arnd T1 - Targeting breast cancer stem cells with HER2-specific antibodies and natural killer cells JF - American Journal of Cancer Research N2 - Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women worldwide. Every year, nearly 1.4 million new cases of breast cancer are diagnosed, and about 450.000 women die of the disease. Approximately 15-25% of breast cancer cases exhibit increased quantities of the trans-membrane receptor tyrosine kinase human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) on the tumor cell surface. Previous studies showed that blockade of this HER2 proto-oncogene with the antibody trastuzumab substantially improved the overall survival of patients with this aggressive type of breast cancer. Recruitment of natural killer (NK) cells and subsequent induction of antibody-dependent cell-mediated cytotoxicity (ADCC) contributed to this beneficial effect. We hypothesized that antibody binding to HER2-positive breast cancer cells and thus ADCC might be further improved by synergistically applying two different HER2-specific antibodies, trastuzumab and pertuzumab. We found that tumor cell killing via ADCC was increased when the combination of trastuzumab, pertuzumab, and NK cells was applied to HER2-positive breast cancer cells, as compared to the extent of ADCC induced by a single antibody. Furthermore, a subset of \(CD44^{high}CD24^{low}HER2^{low}\) cells, which possessed characteristics of cancer stem cells, could be targeted more efficiently by the combination of two HER2-specific antibodies compared to the efficiency of one antibody. These in vitro results demonstrated the immunotherapeutic benefit achieved by the combined application of trastuzumab and pertuzumab. These findings are consistent with the positive results of the clinical studies, CLEOPATRA and NEOSPHERE, conducted with patients that had HER2-positive breast cancer. Compared to a single antibody treatment, the combined application of trastuzumab and pertuzumab showed a stronger ADCC effect and improved the targeting of breast cancer stem cells. KW - trastuzumab KW - breast cancer KW - tumor stem cells KW - ADCC KW - pertuzumab Y1 - 2013 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-128633 VL - 3 IS - 2 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Jaite, Charlotte A1 - Bühren, Katharina A1 - Dahmen, Brigitte A1 - Dempfle, Astrid A1 - Becker, Katja A1 - Correll, Christoph U. A1 - Egberts, Karin M. A1 - Ehrlich, Stefan A1 - Fleischhaker, Christian A1 - von Gontard, Alexander A1 - Hahn, Freia A1 - Kolar, David A1 - Kaess, Michael A1 - Legenbauer, Tanja A1 - Renner, Tobias J. A1 - Schulze, Ulrike A1 - Sinzig, Judith A1 - Thomae, Ellen A1 - Weber, Linda A1 - Wessing, Ida A1 - Antony, Gisela A1 - Hebebrand, Johannes A1 - Föcker, Manuel A1 - Herpertz-Dahlmann, Beate T1 - Clinical Characteristics of Inpatients with Childhood vs. Adolescent Anorexia Nervosa JF - Nutrients N2 - We aimed to compare the clinical data at first presentation to inpatient treatment of children (<14 years) vs. adolescents (≥14 years) with anorexia nervosa (AN), focusing on duration of illness before hospital admission and body mass index (BMI) at admission and discharge, proven predictors of the outcomes of adolescent AN. Clinical data at first admission and at discharge in 289 inpatients with AN (children: n = 72; adolescents: n = 217) from a German multicenter, web-based registry for consecutively enrolled patients with childhood and adolescent AN were analyzed. Inclusion criteria were a maximum age of 18 years, first inpatient treatment due to AN, and a BMI <10th BMI percentile at admission. Compared to adolescents, children with AN had a shorter duration of illness before admission (median: 6.0 months vs. 8.0 months, p = 0.004) and higher BMI percentiles at admission (median: 0.7 vs. 0.2, p = 0.004) as well as at discharge (median: 19.3 vs. 15.1, p = 0.011). Thus, in our study, children with AN exhibited clinical characteristics that have been associated with better outcomes, including higher admission and discharge BMI percentile. Future studies should examine whether these factors are actually associated with positive long-term outcomes in children. KW - anorexia nervosa KW - children KW - adolescents KW - clinical characteristics KW - BMI KW - outcome Y1 - 2019 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-193160 SN - 2072-6643 VL - 11 IS - 11 ER -