Multiperspectivity in organized sport in refugee sites: Sociological findings and pedagogical considerations.

Refugee sites are a means to manage large-scale refugee movements, a recurring event in today's world. Sport is supposed to have beneficial effects for the residents of such sites and is therefore an activity, which is standardly organized by the sites' management. Moreover, many NGOs and "Sport for Development and Peace" programmes endorse the use of sport in emergency situations-including in refugee sites-to achieve several biopsychosocial objectives.

Coordination processes in partnerships between German governmental organizations and German sports federations in jointly implemented SDP projects.

Sports and physical activity are increasingly used as instruments of development policy. Within this field of sport for development and peace (SDP), one can observe a large number of partnerships between national governmental organizations and national sport federations. These are particularly important although these organizations pursue different core objectives with their SDP engagement.

The actin targeting compound Chondramide inhibits breast cancer metastasis via reduction of cellular contractility.

Background: A major player in the process of metastasis is the actin cytoskeleton as it forms key structures in both invasion mechanisms, mesenchymal and amoeboid migration. We tested the actin binding compound Chondramide as potential anti-metastatic agent.

Methods: In vivo, the effect of Chondramide on metastasis was tested employing a 4T1-Luc BALB/c mouse model.

V-ATPase inhibition regulates anoikis resistance and metastasis of cancer cells.

Fighting metastasis is a major challenge in cancer therapy and novel therapeutic targets and drugs are highly appreciated. Resistance of invasive cells to anoikis, a particular type of apoptosis induced by loss of cell-matrix contact, is a major prerequisite for their metastatic spread. Inducing anoikis in metastatic cancer cells is therefore a promising therapeutic approach.

V-ATPase inhibition by archazolid leads to lysosomal dysfunction resulting in impaired cathepsin B activation in vivo.

The myxobacterial agent archazolid inhibits the vacuolar proton pump V-ATPase. V-ATPases are ubiquitously expressed ATP-dependent proton pumps, which are known to regulate the pH in endomembrane systems and thus play a crucial role in endo- and exocytotic processes of the cell. As cancer cells depend on a highly active secretion of proteolytic proteins in order to invade tissue and form metastases, inhibition of V-ATPase is proposed to affect the secretion profile of cancer cells and thus potentially abrogate their metastatic properties.

A polyphosphoester conjugate of melphalan as antitumoral agent.

The low molecular weight of many chemotherapeutics causes their untargeted distribution in the body and fast renal clearance, which leads to a loss of therapeutic activity and to unspecific toxic side effects. Therefore, there is a growing interest in conjugating anticancer drugs to water soluble polymers and thus, take advantage of the 'enhanced permeability and retention' (EPR) effect in tumors. In this study, water soluble polyphosphoesters were used as polymer carriers of melphalan hydrochloride (hydrochloride of p-bis(2-chloroethyl)amino-L-phenylalanine), which is a multifunctional alkylating agent.

Stabilizing effect of tyrosine trimers on pDNA and siRNA polyplexes.

Nine sequence-defined, polycationic oligomers were synthesized containing motifs of three consecutive tyrosines (Y3) as stabilizing components for pDNA and siRNA polyplex assembly. For pDNA, a combination of terminal oligotyrosines and cysteines was necessary and sufficient for stable polyplex formation. Stable siRNA binding required a combination of terminal cysteines and oligotyrosines, as well as a central hydrophobic modification (oligotyrosines or fatty acids).

The V-ATPase-inhibitor archazolid abrogates tumor metastasis via inhibition of endocytic activation of the Rho-GTPase Rac1.

The abundance of the multimeric vacuolar ATP-dependent proton pump, V-ATPase, on the plasma membrane of tumor cells correlates with the invasiveness of the tumor cell, suggesting the involvement of V-ATPase in tumor metastasis. V-ATPase is hypothesized to create a proton efflux leading to an acidic pericellular microenvironment that promotes the activity of proinvasive proteases. An alternative, not yet explored possibility is that V-ATPase regulates the signaling machinery responsible for tumor cell migration.

Nanosized multifunctional polyplexes for receptor-mediated siRNA delivery.

Although our understanding of RNAi and our knowledge on designing and synthesizing active and safe siRNAs significantly increased during the past decade, targeted delivery remains the major limitation in the development of siRNA therapeutics. On one hand, practical considerations dictate robust chemistry reproducibly providing precise carrier molecules. On the other hand, the multistep delivery process requires dynamic multifunctional carriers of substantial complexity.