Search PubMed⌕ Search

Biomedical subjects

H H Goebel

Publications and source records attributed to H H Goebel.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources
PubMed2001

Congenital myopathies.

Most congenital myopathies have been defined on account of the morphological findings in enzyme histochemical preparations. In effect, the diagnosis of this group of diseases continues to be made on the histological pattern of muscle biopsies. However, progress has been made in elucidating the molecular genetic background of several of the congenital myopathies. In this updated review we address those congenital myopathies for which gene defects and mutant proteins have been found (central core disease, nemaline myopathies, desminopathy, actinopathy, certain vacuolar myopathies, and myotubular myopathy) and the other disease with central nuclei (centronuclear myopathy).

Actins↗
PubMed2001

Neurodegenerative diseases.

This article briefly discusses and illustrates the major important neurodegenerative diseases of adulthood and neurometabolic (neurodegenerative in a broader sense) diseases of childhood and their gross neuropathology. Macroscopic views of the brain including the cerebellum and the brain stem and the spinal cord are given by external inspection as well as gross sections after brain cutting. Histologic details and photographs are supplied to explain and corroborate certain gross findings. This article attempts to correlate nosologic and neuropathologic features as the basis for interpreting neuroimaging data.

Adult↗
PubMed2000

Morphological aspects of the neuronal ceroid lipofuscinoses.

Morphological aspects of the neuronal ceroid lipofuscinoses (NCL) encompass two main features: loss of nerve cells and accumulation of autofluorescent lipopigments within cellular compartments. The former requires histology and morphometry for assessment, while the latter necessitates fluorescence microscopy, electron microscopy, and immunohistochemistry. Accumulation of lipopigments is widespread throughout the central nervous system and extracerebrally. The latter feature enables diagnosis of NCL and its clinical subtype. Loss of neurons is most pronounced in cerebral and cerebellar cortices, in early childhood forms. In subcortical grey matter and in later-onset forms, juvenile and adult NCL, reduction in neurons and possible preceding dendritic pathology may only correctly be ascertained by age-matched, controlled morphometric investigations which, to date, have not yet completely assessed subcortical neuronal damage. Presently, clinical and morphological evaluations are mandatory for genetic analysis, genetic counselling, and prenatal diagnosis, the latter often being based on combined genetic and morphological studies.

Brain↗
PubMed2000

Secondary reduction in calpain 3 expression in patients with limb girdle muscular dystrophy type 2B and Miyoshi myopathy (primary dysferlinopathies).

Dysferlin is the protein product of the gene (DYSF) that is defective in patients with limb girdle muscular dystrophy type 2B and Miyoshi myopathy. Calpain 3 is the muscle-specific member of the calcium activated neutral protease family and primary mutations in the CAPN3 gene cause limb girdle muscular dystrophy type 2A. The functions of both proteins remain speculative. Here we report a secondary reduction in calpain 3 expression in eight out of 16 patients with a primary dysferlinopathy and clinical features characteristic of limb girdle muscular dystrophy type 2B or Miyoshi myopathy. Previously CAPN3 analysis had been undertaken in three of these patients and two showed seemingly innocuous missense mutations, changing calpain 3 amino acids to those present in the sequences of calpains 1 and 2. These results suggest that there may be an association between dysferlin and calpain 3, and further analysis of both genes may elucidate a novel functional interaction. In addition, an association was found between prominent expression of smaller forms of the 80 kDa fragment of laminin alpha 2 chain (merosin) and dysferlin-deficiency.

Calpain↗
PubMed2000

Desmin splice variants causing cardiac and skeletal myopathy.

Desmin myopathy is a hereditary or sporadic cardiac and skeletal myopathy characterised by intracytoplasmic accumulation of desmin reactive deposits in muscle cells. We have characterised novel splice site mutations in the gene desmin resulting in deletion of the entire exon 3 during the pre-mRNA splicing. Sequencing of cDNA and genomic DNA identified a heterozygous de novo A to G change at the +3 position of the splice donor site of intron 3 (IVS3+3A-->G) in a patient with sporadic skeletal and cardiac myopathy. A G to A transition at the highly conserved -1 nucleotide position of intron 2 affecting the splice acceptor site (IVS2-1G-->A) was found in an unrelated patient with a similar phenotype. Expression of genomic DNA fragments carrying the IVS3+3A-->G and IVS2-1G-->A mutations confirmed that these mutations cause exon 3 deletion. Aberrant splicing leads to an in frame deletion of 32 complete codons and is predicted to result in mutant desmin lacking 32 amino acids from the 1B segment of the alpha helical rod. Functional analysis of the mutant desmin in SW13 (vim-) cells showed aggregation of abnormal coarse clumps of desmin positive material dispersed throughout the cytoplasm. This is the first report on the pathogenic potentials of splice site mutations in the desmin gene.

Adult↗
PubMed2000

Progress in desmin-related myopathies.

Desmin-related myopathies are sporadic and familial neuromuscular conditions of considerable clinical heterogeneity uniformly marked by the pathologic accretion of desmin, often in a filamentous fashion. A large variety of other proteins, some of them cytoskeletal, also accrue. Morphologically, two types may be distinguished, one characterized by inclusions such as cytoplasmic and spheroid bodies or desmin-dystrophin plaques and another marked by granulofilamentous material. The genetic spectrum of desmin-related myopathies is quite diverse in that missense mutations and deletions in the desmin gene and a missense mutation in the alpha-B crystallin gene have been detected and several genes on other chromosomes have been mapped; the encoded protein products of these genes, however, are unknown. Accumulation of desmin and other proteins appears to be due to impaired nonlysosomal proteolysis. Mutant desmin that appears to be hyperphosphorylated seems to act as a seed protein for filament aggregation, inducing formation of inclusions and granulofilamentous material in these conditions. This condition is part of the group of disorders known as "surplus protein myopathies."

Crystallins↗
PubMed1999

Progress in neuropathology of the neuronal ceroid lipofuscinoses.

Since the last, 6th, International Congress on Neuronal Ceroid-Lipofuscinoses, neuropathological advances in neuronal ceroid lipofuscinoses (NCL) have been made in several areas: (1) In adult NCL (ANCL) lipopigments have now been repeatedly confirmed to contain subunit c of mitochondrial ATP synthase and even sphingolipid activators (saposins). ANCL lipopigments have also been confirmed in extracerebral tissues including skin, skeletal muscle, and spleen, but not yet lymphocytes (2). Among circulating blood cells not only B cells and subclasses of T lymphocytes, i.e., CD4(+), CD8(+), and CD56 cells, but also monocytes have been found to contain NCL lipopigments, indicating that this precursor cell in the digesting macrophage system also has an impaired metabolic catabolism for lipopigments (3). Immunohistochemical studies indicate that microglial reaction in NCL brain is limited to resident microglia without contribution by circulating monocytes (4). The granular osmiophilic deposit (GROD) type of NCL has now been established not only in infantile, but also in late-infantile, juvenile, and protracted-juvenile NCL (5). A European Tissue Registry established within the framework of a European Concerted Action on Neuronal Ceroid-Lipofuscinosis may form the basis for additional collaborative studies on NCL, including both biopsy and autopsy tissues.

Brain↗
PubMed1999

The European Concerted Action NCL Clinical Case Registry.

A European NCL Clinical Case Registry has been set up in London, as part of a European Union-funded Concerted Action project. Concerted Action participants provide written information about children which is then anonymized and entered on the Registry. Contributors are able to request information contained within the Registry for the purpose of epidemiological, molecular, diagnostic, or therapeutic research. Up to May 1998, 60 cases were entered on the Registry.

Europe↗
PubMed1999

[Indications for simultaneous origin of a German and American family with type II hereditary amyloid neuropathy].

The classification of familial amyloid neuropathies (FAP) is traditionally based on clinical and regional aspects. In the last 10 years more than 40 mutations of the transthyretin gene have been found to be responsible for different clinical forms of amyloidosis including familial FAP.FAP II is caused by a mutation on the codon 58 of the transthyretin gene. Only two american kindreds (the Maryland/German and the Ohio family) have previously been reported with FAP II starting in the 3rd or 4th decade by sensory disturbances of the hands typically as a carpal tunnel syndrome. We report on a german family with FAP II from the rhine river area south of Mainz. Four members with typical clinical symptoms showed the histidine 58 mutation like the american families with FAP II. Haplotype analysis showed that all of them were haplotype III like the american patients indicating that the american and german kindreds have a genetic linkage and common familial roots.

Adult↗
PubMed1999

Immunogold EM reveals a close association of plectin and the desmin cytoskeleton in human skeletal muscle.

Plectin is a multifunctional cytoskeletal linker protein with an intermediate filament-binding site and sequence elements with high homology to actin-binding domains. Mutations of the human plectin gene as well as the targeted inactivation of its murine analog cause a generalized blistering skin disorder and muscular dystrophy, thus implying its essential role in cells that are exposed to mechanical stress. In the present study we report the characterization of two new domain-specific plectin antibodies as well as ultrastructural localization of plectin in normal human skeletal muscle. Using immunogold electron microscopy, we localized plectin at three prominent sites: 1) Plectin is found at regularly spaced intervals along the cytoplasmic face of the plasma membrane. 2) It is distinctly localized at filamentous bridges between Z-lines of peripheral myofibrils and the sarcolemma and 3) at structures forming the intermyofibrillar scaffold. At the latter two locations, plectin and desmin were found to colocalize. Our ultrastructural analysis suggests that plectin may have a central role in the structural and functional organization of the intermediate filament cytoskeleton in mature human skeletal muscle.

3T3 Cells↗
PubMed1999

Extracerebral biopsies in neurodegenerative diseases of childhood.

Among the numerous neurodegenerative diseases in children few may allow morphological diagnosis by extracerebral biopsy. These encompass neurometabolic conditions, foremost lysosomal disorders, but also peroxisomal and mitochondrial diseases marked by disease- or group-specific organelles. Largely, these neurometabolic conditions can also be diagnosed by biochemical and increasingly by molecular genetic techniques. However, there are a few neurodegenerative diseases which do not allow either biochemical or molecular genetic diagnosis and, thus, rely on biopsy of extracerebral tissues, so-called 'essential' biopsies to achieve a diagnosis during the patient's life. Among these few disorders only Lafora disease, as other polyglucosan disorders, may be considered a neurometabolic disease, whereas in the others, neuroaxonal dystrophies, giant axonal neuropathy and neuronal intranuclear inclusion disease no metabolic abnormalities are known, but these disorders share the peripheral nervous system as a common site of their disease-specific morphological lesions. With the progress of molecular genetics and the fact that many neurodegenerative diseases are familial, it is expected that the number of neurodegenerative disorders and the number of patients afflicted with these diseases, currently subject to diagnostic extracerebral biopsies, will be continuously reduced. Thus, it is foreseeable that within the next few years or decades diagnostic electron microscopy and the related knowledge of respective ultrastructural pathology may become outmoded, and, possibly, unknown to future generations of neuropathologists and other members of the neuroscience community.

Biopsy↗
PubMed1999

Immunosuppressive treatment of rippling muscles in patients with myasthenia gravis.

Rippling muscle disease is a rare autosomal dominant disorder that may occur sporadically. In this report two patients presenting with rippling muscles followed by myasthenia gravis are described. Our first patient developed rippling muscles about 1 month after infection with Yersinia enterocolitica. Two years later myasthenia gravis appeared. Our second patient had a 2-year history of asthma prior to the onset of rippling muscles which preceded the myasthenic symptoms by 4-8 weeks. Acetylcholine receptor and anti-skeletal muscle antibody titers were positive in both patients. In both patients the rippling phenomena worsened with pyridostigmine treatment but markedly improved after immunosuppression with azathioprine.

Adult↗
PubMed1999

Mutations in the skeletal muscle alpha-actin gene in patients with actin myopathy and nemaline myopathy.

Muscle contraction results from the force generated between the thin filament protein actin and the thick filament protein myosin, which causes the thick and thin muscle filaments to slide past each other. There are skeletal muscle, cardiac muscle, smooth muscle and non-muscle isoforms of both actin and myosin. Inherited diseases in humans have been associated with defects in cardiac actin (dilated cardiomyopathy and hypertrophic cardiomyopathy), cardiac myosin (hypertrophic cardiomyopathy) and non-muscle myosin (deafness). Here we report that mutations in the human skeletal muscle alpha-actin gene (ACTA1) are associated with two different muscle diseases, 'congenital myopathy with excess of thin myofilaments' (actin myopathy) and nemaline myopathy. Both diseases are characterized by structural abnormalities of the muscle fibres and variable degrees of muscle weakness. We have identified 15 different missense mutations resulting in 14 different amino acid changes. The missense mutations in ACTA1 are distributed throughout all six coding exons, and some involve known functional domains of actin. Approximately half of the patients died within their first year, but two female patients have survived into their thirties and have children. We identified dominant mutations in all but 1 of 14 families, with the missense mutations being single and heterozygous. The only family showing dominant inheritance comprised a 33-year-old affected mother and her two affected and two unaffected children. In another family, the clinically unaffected father is a somatic mosaic for the mutation seen in both of his affected children. We identified recessive mutations in one family in which the two affected siblings had heterozygous mutations in two different exons, one paternally and the other maternally inherited. We also identified de novo mutations in seven sporadic probands for which it was possible to analyse parental DNA.

Actins↗