Eph receptors, the largest receptor tyrosine kinases, and their ephrin ligands play important roles in axon guidance and cell migration during development of the nervous system. Recently, these molecules are also found involved in tumorigenesis of different kinds of cancers. In this study, we demonstrated that expression of ephrin-A1 was dramatically downregulated in glioma cell lines and in primary gliomas compared to the matched normal tissues. Forced expression of ephrin-A1 attenuated cell migration, cell proliferation, and adhesion-independent growth in human glioma U251 cells. EphA2, a receptor for ephrin-A1 and an oncoprotein, was greatly decreased in ephrin-A1-transfected glioma cells. Overexpression of ephrin-A1 stimulated activation of EphA2 by phosphorylation and led to its degradation. Furthermore, focal adhesion kinase (FAK), a known downstream molecule of EphA2, was also down-regulated in the ephrin-A1 transfected cells. These results suggested that ephrin-A1 serves as a critical negative regulator in the tumorigenesis of gliomas by down-regulating EphA2 and FAK, which may provide potential valuable targets for therapeutic intervention.

Soil moisture anomalies within the root zone (roughly, soil depths down to ~0.4 m) typically persist only a few months. Consequently, land surface–related climate predictability research has often focused on subseasonal to seasonal time scales. However, in this study of multidecadal in situ datasets and land data assimilation products, we find that root zone soil moisture anomalies can recur several or more seasons after they were initiated, indicating potential interannual predictability. Lead–lag correlations show that this recurrence often happens during one fixed season and also seems related to the greater memory of soil moisture anomalies within the layer beneath the root zone, with memory on the order of several months to over a year. That is, in some seasons, notably spring and summer when the vertical soil water potential gradient reverses sign throughout much of North America, deeper soil moisture anomalies appear to return to the surface, thereby restoring an earlier root zone anomaly that had decayed. We call this process “reemergence,” in analogy with a similar seasonally varying process (with different underlying physics) providing winter-to-winter memory to the extratropical ocean surface layer. Pronounced spatial and seasonal dependence of soil moisture reemergence is found that is frequently, but not always, robust across datasets. Also, some of its aspects appear sensitive to spatial and temporal sampling, especially within the shorter available in situ datasets, and to precipitation variability. Like its namesake, soil moisture reemergence may enhance interannual-to-decadal variability, notably of droughts. Its detailed physics and role within the climate system, however, remain to be understood.

A simple silver salt (AgOAc)-catalyzed anti-Markovnikov-selective hydroboration of alkenes, 1,3-dienes, and alkynes with pinacolborane (HBpin) has been described. This strategy provides an efficient and practical method to access various alkyl-, allyl-, and (E)-alkenylboronate esters in good to excellent yields with regio- and stereoselectivity under ligand- and base-free conditions.