Circulating Micro-RNAs as Potential Blood-Based Markers for Early Stage Breast Cancer Detection

INTRODUCTION: MicroRNAs (miRNAs, miRs) are a class of small, non-coding RNA molecules with relevance as regulators of gene expression thereby affecting crucial processes in cancer development. MiRNAs offer great potential as biomarkers for cancer detection due to their remarkable stability in blood and their characteristic expression in many different diseases. We investigated whether microarray-based miRNA profiling on whole blood could discriminate between early stage breast cancer patients and healthy controls. METHODS: We performed microarray-based miRNA profiling on whole blood of 48 early stage breast cancer patients at diagnosis along with 57 healthy individuals as controls. This was followed by a real-time semi-quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-qPCR) validation in a separate cohort of 24 early stage breast cancer patients from a breast cancer screening unit and 24 age matched controls using two differentially expressed miRNAs (miR-202, miR-718). RESULTS: Using the significance level of p<0.05, we found that 59 miRNAs were differentially expressed in whole blood of early stage breast cancer patients compared to healthy controls. 13 significantly up-regulated miRNAs and 46 significantly down-regulated miRNAs in our microarray panel of 1100 miRNAs and miRNA star sequences could be detected. A set of 240 miRNAs that was evaluated by radial basis function kernel support vector machines and 10-fold cross validation yielded a specificity of 78.8%, and a sensitivity of 92.5%, as well as an accuracy of 85.6%. Two miRNAs were validated by RT-qPCR in an independent cohort. The relative fold changes of the RT-qPCR validation were in line with the microarray data for both miRNAs, and statistically significant differences in miRNA-expression were found for miR-202. CONCLUSIONS: MiRNA profiling in whole blood has potential as a novel method for early stage breast cancer detection, but there are still challenges that need to be addressed to establish these new biomarkers in clinical use

The INF Treaty of 1987

Der von Ronald Reagan und Michail Gorbatschow am 8. Dezember 1987 unterzeichnete »Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty«, kurz INF-Vertrag, stellte einen Meilenstein der nuklearen Abrüstungsverhandlungen zwischen den Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika und der Sowjetunion dar. Im Jahr 2019 wurde er von Russland und den USA gekündigt. Der englischsprachige Band untersucht die Vorgeschichte des Abkommens, dessen Implementierung und Folgen sowohl in den beiden Supermächten als auch in den mit ihnen verbündeten Staaten. Er ist damit die erste umfassende Darstellung eines der wichtigsten Abrüstungsabkommen der jüngsten Zeit

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Formen und spezifische Herausforderungen französischer Präsenz in der DDR

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A surprising continuity. The French attitude and policy towards the German Democratic Republic, 1949-1990

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Ulrich Pfeil, Die « anderen » deutsch-französischen Beziehungen. Die DDR und Frankreich 1949-1990, Cologne, Böhlau Verlag, 2004

Compte rendu de l'ouvrage "Die « anderen » deutsch-französischen Beziehungen. Die DDR und Frankreich 1949-1990, Ulrich Pfeil, Cologne, Böhlau Verlag, 2004. Compte rendu paru dans Revue d’histoire diplomatique, n° 119/1, p. 93-95

Olaf B. Rader (dir).Turbata per aequora mundi. Dankesgabe an Eckhard Müller-Mertens, Hannover, Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 2001

Compte rendu de l'ouvrage Turbata per aequora mundi. Dankesgabe an Eckhard Müller-Mertens, dir. Olaf B. Rader, Hannover, Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 2001. Compte rendu paru dans Francia, n° 30/1, p. 255-258

Uwe Fleckner et Thomas W. Gaethgens (Hg) De Grünewald à Menzel. L’image de l’art allemand en France au XIXe siècle. Paris (Éditions de la Maison des sciences de l’homme), 2003

Compte rendu paru dans le n° 32/2 de la revue Francia de l'ouvrage "De Grünewald à Menzel. L’image de l’art allemand en France au XIXe siècle"Compte rendu paru dans le n° 32/2 de la revue Francia de l'ouvrage "De Grünewald à Menzel. L’image de l’art allemand en France au XIXe siècle

1989. Berlin. Un mur qui tombe

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