Esophageal cancer is the sixth leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide. Squamous cell carcinoma is the most common histology in Eastern Europe and Asia, and adenocarcinoma is most common in North America and Western Europe. Surgery is a major component of treatment of locally advanced resectable esophageal and esophagogastric junction (EGJ) cancer, and randomized trials have shown that the addition of preoperative chemoradiation or perioperative chemotherapy to surgery significantly improves survival. Targeted therapies including trastuzumab, ramucirumab, and pembrolizumab have produced encouraging results in the treatment of patients with advanced or metastatic disease. Multidisciplinary team management is essential for all patients with esophageal and EGJ cancers. This selection from the NCCN Guidelines for Esophageal and Esophagogastric Junction Cancers focuses on recommendations for the management of locally advanced and metastatic adenocarcinoma of the esophagus and EGJ.

Gastric cancer is the third leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide. Over 95% of gastric cancers are adenocarcinomas, which are typically classified based on anatomic location and histologic type. Gastric cancer generally carries a poor prognosis because it is often diagnosed at an advanced stage. Systemic therapy can provide palliation, improved survival, and enhanced quality of life in patients with locally advanced or metastatic disease. The implementation of biomarker testing, especially analysis of HER2 status, microsatellite instability (MSI) status, and the expression of programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1), has had a significant impact on clinical practice and patient care. Targeted therapies including trastuzumab, nivolumab, and pembrolizumab have produced encouraging results in clinical trials for the treatment of patients with locally advanced or metastatic disease. Palliative management, which may include systemic therapy, chemoradiation, and/or best supportive care, is recommended for all patients with unresectable or metastatic cancer. Multidisciplinary team management is essential for all patients with localized gastric cancer. This selection from the NCCN Guidelines for Gastric Cancer focuses on the management of unresectable locally advanced, recurrent, or metastatic disease.

Key pointsr We recently found that feeding healthy mice a diet with reduced levels of branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs), which are associated with insulin resistance in both humans and rodents, modestly improves glucose tolerance and slows fat mass gain.r In the present study, we show that a reduced BCAA diet promotes rapid fat mass loss without calorie restriction in obese mice.r Selective reduction of dietary BCAAs also restores glucose tolerance and insulin sensitivity to obese mice, even as they continue to consume a high-fat, high-sugar diet.r A low BCAA diet transiently induces FGF21 (fibroblast growth factor 21) and increases energy expenditure.r We suggest that dietary protein quality (i.e. the precise macronutrient composition of dietary protein) may impact the effectiveness of weight loss diets.Abstract Obesity and diabetes are increasing problems around the world, and although even moderate weight loss can improve metabolic health, reduced calorie diets are notoriously difficult to sustain. Branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs; leucine, isoleucine and valine) are elevated in the blood of obese, insulin-resistant humans and rodents. We recently demonstrated that specifically reducing dietary levels of BCAAs has beneficial effects on the metabolic health of young, growing mice, improving glucose tolerance and modestly slowing fat mass gain. In the present study, we examine the hypothesis that reducing dietary BCAAs will promote weight loss, reduce adiposity, and improve blood glucose control in diet-induced obese mice with pre-existing metabolic syndrome. We find that specifically reducing dietary BCAAs rapidly reverses diet-induced obesity and improves glucoregulatory control in diet-induced obese mice. Most dramatically, mice eating an otherwise unhealthy high-calorie, high-sugar Western diet with reduced levels of BCAAs lost weight and fat mass rapidly until regaining a normal weight. Importantly, this normalization of weight was mediated not by caloric restriction or increased activity, but by increased energy expenditure, and was accompanied by a transient induction of the energy balance regulating hormone FGF21 (fibroblast growth factor 21). Consumption of a Western diet reduced in BCAAs was also accompanied by a dramatic improvement in glucose tolerance and insulin resistance. Our results link dietary BCAAs with the regulation of metabolic health and energy balance in obese animals, and suggest that specifically reducing dietary BCAAs may represent a highly translatable option for the treatment of obesity and insulin resistance.

Purpose: Cancer treatment is limited by inaccurate predictors of patient-specific therapeutic response. Therefore, some patients are exposed to unnecessary side effects and delays in starting effective therapy. A clinical tool that predicts treatment sensitivity for individual patients is needed. Experimental Design: Patient-derived cancer organoids were derived across multiple histologies. The histologic characteristics, mutation profile, clonal structure, and response to chemotherapy and radiation were assessed using bright-field and optical metabolic imaging on spheroid and single-cell levels, respectively. Results: We demonstrate that patient-derived cancer organoids represent the cancers from which they were derived, including key histologic and molecular features. These cultures were generated from numerous cancers, various biopsy sample types, and in different clinical settings. Next-generation sequencing reveals the presence of subclonal populations within the organoid cultures. These cultures allow for the detection of clonal heterogeneity with a greater sensitivity than bulk tumor sequencing. Optical metabolic imaging of these organoids provides cell-level quantification of treatment response and tumor heterogeneity allowing for resolution of therapeutic differences between patient samples. Using this technology, we prospectively predict treatment response for a patient with metastatic colorectal cancer. Conclusions: These studies add to the literature demonstrating feasibility to grow clinical patient-derived organotypic cultures for treatment effectiveness testing. Together, these culture methods and response assessment techniques hold great promise to predict treatment sensitivity for patients with cancer undergoing chemotherapy and/or radiation.

SUMMARYCurrently available techniques for performing quantitative immunohistochemistry (Q-IHC) rely upon pixel-counting algorithms and therefore cannot provide information as to the absolute amount of chromogen present. We describe a novel algorithm for true Q-IHC based on calculating the cumulative signal strength, or energy, of the digital file representing any portion of an image. This algorithm involves subtracting the energy of the digital file encoding the control image (i.e., not exposed to antibody) from that of the experimental image (i.e., antibody-treated). In this manner, the absolute amount of antibody-specific chromogen per pixel can be determined for any cellular region or structure. Q uantitative immunohistochemistry (Q-IHC) in the predigital era depended on the observations of multiple investigators using an arbitrary scale to grade the extent and intensity of chromogen present (Shi et al. 1991(Shi et al. ,1993. This approach was inherently limited by observer subjectivity and bias, by inter-and intraobserver variation, and generated data of limited range (i.e., amount is usually quantified on a 0-4 scale). With the advent of digital photomicroscopy, however, these weaknesses could in theory be eliminated and true quantification achieved.Early attempts at Q-IHC involved converting analog images into a digital format and then transforming the 256 separate shades of red, green and blue that are obtained when working in 24-bit RGB color to singlechannel grayscale (Mosedale et al. 1996). The area of interest is defined and the mean gray level of the selected pixels determined. Later attempts at Q-IHC employed color thresholding using commercial software (i.e., Adobe Photoshop) (Fermin and Degraw 1995), followed by counting the total number of pixels of appropriate value (Lehr et al. 1997(Lehr et al. ,1999Ruifrok 1997). For example, in DAB-based immunohistochemistry all the pixels containing "brown" within a prespecified spectral range are identified in Photoshop using the Magic Wand tool. The total numbers of pixels identified are then counted using the histogram function (Lehr et al. 1999). Although these algorithms represent significant improvements over traditional methods for evaluating analog images, these approaches still do not allow true Q-IHC to be performed.Determining the absolute amount of chromogen present necessitates calculating the cumulative signal strength of the image being evaluated. This can be done only by calculating signal energy, E, which is defined in the mathematical (Jain 1989) and not the physical sense. Here we provide an algorithm for true Q-IHC that relies on calculating the energy of images captured in Photoshop using a high-resolution digital camera and then processing the image's unmodified and full digital file using the powerful enabler language Matlab. To demonstrate this algorithm, we studied the gastrin-releasing peptide receptor (GRPR) aberrantly expressed by human colon cancers. Because we have previously shown that human colon cancers variably express this ...

Aldo-keto reductase family 1B10 (AKR1B10) exhibits more restricted lipid substrate specificity (including farnesal, geranylgeranial, retinal and carbonyls), a n d metabolizing these lipid substrates plays a crucial role in promoting carcinogenesis. Overexpression of AKR1B10 has been identified in smoking-related carcinomas such as lung cancer. As development of pancreatic cancer is firmly linked to smoking, the aim of the present study was to examine the expression and oncogenic role of AKR1B10 in pancreatic adenocarcinoma. AKR1B10 expression was analyzed in 50 paraffin-embedded clinical pancreatic cancer samples using immunohistochemistry. Oncogenic function of AKR1B10 was examined in pancreatic carcinoma cells in vitro using western blotting and siRNA approaches, mainly on cell apoptosis and protein prenylation including KRAS protein and its downstream signals. Immunohistochemistry analysis revealed that AKR1B10 over-expressed in 70% (35/50) of pancreatic adenocarcinomas and majority of pancreatic intraepithelial neoplasia, but not in adjacent morphologically normal pancreatic tissue. Compared to a normal pancreatic ductal epithelial cell (HPDE6E7), all of six cultured pancreatic adenocarcinoma cell lines had a over-expression of AKR1B10 using immunoblotting, which correlated with increase of enzyme activity. siRNA-mediated silencing of AKR1B10 expression in pancreatic cancer cells resulted in 1) increased cell apoptosis, 2) increased non-farnesyled HDJ2 protein, and 3) decreased membrane-bound prenylated KRAS protein and its downstream signaling molecules including phosphorylated ERK and MEK and membrane-bound E-cadherin. Our findings provide first time evidence of that AKR1B10 is a unique enzyme involved in pancreatic carcinogenesis possibly via modulation of cell apoptosis and protein prenylation.

Without transplantation, ∼50–90% of all patients with fulminant hepatic failure (FHF) die. This poor outcome is due in part to the absence of an appropriate animal model, which would allow for a greater understanding of the pathophysiology of this syndrome. Given the reports of liver injury in humans and livestock fed cycad palm nuts on the island of Guam, we hypothesized that the active ingredient azoxymethane (AOM) could cause FHF. We therefore evaluated AOM in C57BL/6J mice. Histologically, we observed microvesicular steatosis 2 h, sinusoidal dilatation 4 h, and centrilobular necrosis 20 h after AOM administration, and transmission electron microscopy showed that this agent causes mitochondrial injury. FHF was associated with all four stages of encephalopathy, as well as by a prodromal period of decreased eating and drinking lasting ∼15 h before the development of stage I encephalopathy (i.e., loss of scatter reflex). Late encephalopathy was associated with increased arterial ammonia, decreased serum glucose, and evidence of brain edema (astrocyte swelling). We show that AOM-induced FHF is highly reproducible, without evidence of lot-to-lot variability, and is dose dependent. These findings therefore suggest that AOM is an excellent agent for the study of FHF, as well as indicate that Guamanian FHF may be due to AOM found in unwashed cycad palm nuts.

Colorectal cancer (CRC) originates within immunologically complex microenvironments. To date the benefits of immunotherapy have been modest except in neoantigen-laden mismatch repair (MMR)-deficient tumors. Approaches to enhance tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes in the tumor bed may substantially augment clinical immunotherapy responses. Here we report that proteolysis of the tolerogenic matrix proteoglycan versican (VCAN) strongly correlated with CD8+ T-cell infiltration in CRC, regardless of mismatch-repair status. Tumors displaying active VCAN proteolysis and low total VCAN were associated with robust (10-fold) CD8+ T-cell infiltration. Tumor-intrinsic WNT pathway activation was associated with CD8+ T-cell exclusion and VCAN accumulation. In addition to regulating VCAN levels at the tumor site, VCAN proteolysis results in the generation of bioactive fragments with novel functions (VCAN-derived matrikines). The VCAN-derived matrikine, versikine, enhanced the generation of CD103+CD11chiMHCIIhi conventional dendritic cells (cDC) (homologous to Batf3-DC/CD8α+ DC/CD103+ DC/cDC1 subset/intratumoral DC2) from Flt3L-mobilized primary bone marrow-derived progenitors, suggesting that VCAN proteolysis may promote differentiation of tumor-seeding DC precursors towards IRF8- and BATF3-expressing cDC. Intratumoral BATF3-dependent DC are critical determinants for T-cell anti-tumor immunity, effector T cell trafficking to the tumor site and response to immunotherapies. Our findings provide a rationale for testing VCAN proteolysis as a predictive and/or prognostic immune biomarker and VCAN-derived matrikines as novel immunotherapy agents.