PHARMACEUTICAL COMPOSITION, AND PREPARATION METHOD THEREFOR AND APPLICATION THEREOF
20230348856 · 2023-11-02
Inventors
- Yuping GE (Shenzhen, CN)
- Yaling HUANG (Shenzhen, CN)
- Zhengqi ZHAO (Shenzhen, CN)
- Xuan DONG (Shenzhen, CN)
- Ying GU (Shenzhen, CN)
- Yong HOU (Shenzhen, CN)
- Xiuqing Zhang (Shenzhen, CN)
Cpc classification
C12N5/0639
CHEMISTRY; METALLURGY
International classification
Abstract
A method for activating an adaptive immune response by adding allogeneic dendritic cells (DCs) and/or viral antigen peptides to conventional DC vaccines to expand the DC vaccine antigen spectrum with the aid of exogenous DC effect, thereby enhancing the anti-tumor effect of the DC vaccine.
Claims
1. Dendritic cells (DCs), wherein the DCs are loaded with tumor antigen peptides and viral antigen peptides.
2. The DCs according to claim 1, wherein the DCs are derived from a tumor patient.
3. The DCs according to claim 1, wherein the viral antigen peptides comprise at least one selected from the group consisting of EBV antigen peptides and CMV antigen peptides.
4. A pharmaceutical composition, comprising the DCs according to claim 1.
5. The pharmaceutical composition according to claim 4, further comprising: autologous DCs derived from a tumor patient; and/or allogeneic DCs derived from a healthy individual.
6. The pharmaceutical composition according to claim 5, wherein a ratio of the number of autologous DCs to the number of the allogeneic DCs ranges from (20:1) to (3:1).
7. A method for preparing the DCs according to claim 1, comprising the following steps: 1) obtaining immature DCs derived from a tumor patient by conducting induced differentiation culturing of CD14+ cells derived from the tumor patient; 2) obtaining mature DCs derived from the tumor patient by subjecting the immature DCs derived from the tumor patient to tumor antigen polypeptide loading treatment and mature-induction treatment; and 3) obtaining the DCs or the pharmaceutical composition by subjecting the DCs derived from the tumor patient to viral antigen peptide loading treatment.
8. The method according to claim 7, wherein the mature DCs derived from the tumor patient are subjected to the viral antigen peptide loading treatment by: incubating the mature DCs together with viral antigen peptides in 5% CO.sub.2 at 37° C. for 4 to 6 hours, wherein: the mature DCs are suspended and cultured in a serum-free medium with a concentration of 1×10.sup.6 cells/mL; and a concentration of the viral antigen peptides in an incubation system is 1 μM.
9. A method for preparing the pharmaceutical composition according to claim 4, comprising the following steps: 1) obtaining immature DCs derived from a tumor patient by conducting induced differentiation culturing of CD14+ cells derived from the tumor patient; 2) obtaining mature DCs derived from the tumor patient by subjecting the immature DCs derived from the tumor patient to tumor antigen polypeptide loading treatment and mature-induction treatment; and 3) obtaining the DCs or the pharmaceutical composition by subjecting the DCs derived from the tumor patient to viral antigen peptide loading treatment.
10. The method according to claim 9, wherein the mature DCs derived from the tumor patient are subjected to the viral antigen peptide loading treatment by: incubating the mature DCs together with viral antigen peptides in 5% CO.sub.2 at 37° C. for 4 to 6 hours, wherein: the mature DCs are suspended and cultured in a serum-free medium with a concentration of 1×10.sup.6 cells/mL; and a concentration of the viral antigen peptides in an incubation system is 1
11. A method for treating a tumor patient, comprising: obtaining peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from a tumor patient and/or a healthy individual, and sorting CD14+ cells derived from the PBMCs obtained from the tumor patient and/or the healthy individual; preparing, by the method according to claim 7, a pharmaceutical composition or DCs from the CD14+ cells; and infusing the pharmaceutical composition or the DCs into the tumor patient.
12. The method according to claim 11, further comprising, prior to said infusing the pharmaceutical composition or the DCs into the tumor patient: obtaining activated and amplified T cells by in vitro co-culturing the pharmaceutical composition or the DCs with autologous T cells derived from the tumor patient; and infusing the T cells into the tumor patient.
13. A method for improving an immune killing activity of autologous DCs, comprising: mixing the autologous DCs with allogeneic DCs.
14. The method according to claim 13, wherein: the autologous DCs are derived from a tumor patient; and the allogeneic DCs are derived from a healthy individual.
15. The method according to claim 13, wherein a ratio of the number of autologous DCs to the number of the allogeneic DCs ranges from (20:1) to (3:1).
16. The method according to claim 13, wherein the autologous DCs are loaded with tumor antigen peptides and/or viral antigen peptides.
17. The method according to claim 16, wherein the viral antigen peptides comprise at least one selected from the group consisting of EBV antigen peptides and CMV antigen peptides.
Description
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS
[0048] The above and/or additional aspects and advantages of the present disclosure will become obvious and can be readily understood from the embodiments described below with reference to the drawings.
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DESCRIPTION OF EMBODIMENTS
[0079] The embodiments of the present disclosure will be described below in detail. Examples of the embodiments are shown in the drawings. Throughout the drawings, the same or similar reference signs represent the same or similar elements or elements having the same or similar functions. The embodiments described below with reference to the drawings are exemplary and only used to explain the present disclosure, and they are not intended to limit the present disclosure.
[0080] It should be noted that the terms “first” and “second” are only used for the purpose of description, and should not be understood as indicating or implying relative importance or implying the number of indicated technical features. Thus, a feature defined with “first” or “second” may expressly or implicitly include one or more same features. Further, in the description of the present disclosure, unless otherwise specified, “more” means two or more.
[0081] With the existing DC vaccine preparation method, the prepared DC vaccine has limited anti-tumor spectrum and antigen immunogenicity, which affect its the effectiveness and the specificity. In view of this fact, the present disclosure provides a method for enhancing the functions of conventional DC vaccines by adding with viral antigen peptides and/or allogenic DCs, thereby triggering a stronger body's immune response. An objective of the present disclosure is to provide a simple and efficient method for preparing a DC vaccine, which can trigger a stronger body immune response.
[0082] In order to achieve the above objective, the present disclosure adopts the following technical solutions. The present disclosure provides a method for triggering an adaptive immune response by adding allogenic DCs and/or viral antigen peptides to a conventional DC vaccine, to expand the antigen spectrum and improve the antigen immunogenicity of the conventional DC vaccine with aid of the alloreactivity of the exogenous DCs, thereby enhancing the anti-tumor effect of the DC vaccine. The method includes the following steps.
[0083] (1) Acquisition of autologous and allogenic CD14+ cells: CD14+ cells are respectively sorted from PBMCs from a patient and a healthy volunteer by a magnetic bead method; after being sorted, the cells are respectively resuspended in serum-free DC media (CellGenix® GMP DC Medium, 20801-0500) and counted, and the cell density is adjusted to 5×10.sup.5 cells/mL.
[0084] (2) Incubation of immature autologous and allogenic DCs: the CD14+ cells derived from the patient and the volunteer are respectively coated onto plates at a density of 5×10.sup.5 cells/mL, and GM-CSF (800 U/mL) and IL-4 (1,000 U/mL) are added to the medium. The cells are incubated in 5% CO.sub.2 at 37° C. for 5 days, and during the incubation, half of the medium is replaced once every other day. When replacing the medium, ½ (or ⅓) of the old medium is carefully taken out of the culture dish or culture flask by suction, transferred into a new centrifuge tube (15 mL), and centrifuged at 400 g for 5 min. After the centrifugation, the supernatant is removed, the cell pellet is collected and then added and uniformly mixed with a fresh medium by repeatedly pipetting. The cells are placed on the original culture dish, and cytokines GM-CSF (800 U/mL) and IL-4 (1,000 U/mL) with the same volume are added.
[0085] (3) Loading of neoantigen long peptides individualized for the tumor patient onto the DCs, and mature-induction of the DCs: on the 5th day of the incubation of the immature autologous DCs, the medium is replaced, 10 μM long peptides (27-30 aa) are added to the medium to allow the immature DCs to phagocytize the long peptides, and the cells are incubated in 5% CO.sub.2 at 37° C. for 16 hours, the DCs loaded with the long peptides can activate CD4+ and CD8+ T cells at the same time; on the 6th day, maturation factors TNF-α (40 ng/mL), IL-6 (20 ng/mL), IL-1β (20 ng/mL), PGE2 (100 ng/mL), and PolyIC (5 ug/mL) are added to the medium for the immature DCs to induce the maturation of the DCs.
[0086] (4) Loading of neoantigen short peptides individualized for the tumor patient onto the DCs: on the 7th day of the incubation, the DCs are maturated, and it can be observed under a microscope that most of the cells are suspended and have obvious small synapses. In this case, suspended DCs are collected and centrifuged at 400 g for 5 min, the supernatant is removed, the cells are resuspended in a medium and counted to adjust the cell density to 1×10.sup.6 cells/mL; 1 μM antigen short peptides are added (which can be omitted if a DC vaccine treatment regimen uses DCs loaded with long peptides alone); the cells are incubated in 5% CO.sub.2 at 37° C. for 4 hours, and the DCs loaded with the short peptides can activate CD8+ T cells. After the incubation, the DCs loaded with the peptides are washed with a medium and centrifuged at 400 g for 5 min, and the cell pellet is collected and resuspended in a medium for later use. The DCs obtained at this time can be used as a material to prepare a novel DC vaccine, or co-cultured with autologous T lymphocytes in vitro and then used for later function analysis and flow cytometry identification.
[0087] (5) Phenotype detection of DCs through flow cytometry: the DCs obtained at the previous step are stained by the following antibodies: CD80 (PE-Cy7), CD83 (APC), CD86 (PE), HLA-DR (PerCP-Cy5.5), and CD14 (APC-Cy7), respectively, and analyzed by using a flow cytometer to detect the expression of each antibody and the maturity of the DCs.
[0088] (6) DC harvesting, and preparation of a final novel DC vaccine: 2 days after the maturation of the DCs, the DC suspension is collected and subjected to microorganism, endotoxin, and mycoplasma testing; the qualified autologous DCs, which do not contain bacteria, mycoplasmas, and endotoxins, are mixed with the allogenic DCs according to a ratio of 20:1, 10:1, 5:1, 3:1, or any ratio ranging from (20:1) to (3:1), to obtain a novel individualized DC vaccine containing the allogenic DCs. After being maturated, the autologous DCs are loaded with relevant viral antigen peptides such as EBV antigen peptides and CMV antigen peptides, and mixed with the allogenic DCs to obtain a novel individualized DC vaccine containing the allogenic DCs and the viral antigen peptides. Similarly, a novel individualized DC vaccine only loaded with the viral antigen peptides and contain no allogenic DCs can also be obtained.
[0089] (7) In-vitro function test of the novel DC vaccines: each of the prepared novel DC vaccines is co-cultured with T cells, and one week later, the ability of each of the prepared novel DC vaccines to activate T cells and promote T cell proliferation can be tested in vitro. The DC-T cells are co-cultured with corresponding tumor cells, and the tumor killing effect and the IFN-γ production capacity of the DC-T cells can be tested in vitro.
[0090] For ease of understanding, the preparation process of the above novel individualized DC vaccine is illustrated in
[0091] Compared with conventional DC vaccines, the ability of the novel DC vaccine prepared by the above method to activate T cells or stimulate T cell proliferation is enhanced by 5 to 50 times, the T cells can be amplified by 200 to 500 times, and the tumor killing activity of effective T cells can be improved by 3-6 times.
[0092] Compared with the prior art, the ability of the DCs cultured by the above method to activate T cell or stimulate T cell proliferation as well as the in-vitro tumor killing activity are improved by 3 to 6 times, and the expanding fold of effective T cells is increased by 5 to 50 times. The in vivo assays of mice indicate that the tumor inhibition rate of the DC-T cells cultured by the present method can reach 80% and is greatly higher than that of the conventional DC-T cells, revealing the significant improvement in the effectiveness and the specificity of the DC vaccine.
[0093] The technical solutions of the present disclosure will be explained below with reference to examples. Those skilled in the art can understand that the following examples are only used to describe the present disclosure, and are not intended to limit the scope of the present disclosure. In these examples, the unspecified techniques or conditions shall be those described in the literatures (J. Sambrook et al. Molecular Cloning: A Laboratory Manual, Science Press, Third Edition, translated by Huang Peitang et al.) in the related art or the product manual. The reagents or instruments used without specifying manufacturers shall be the commercially available products, for example, purchased from Miltenyi Biotec.
EXAMPLE 1: CD14+ CELL SORTING
[0094] PBMCs from a HLA0201 colorectal tumor patient and a healthy volunteer were obtained by a Ficoll lymphocyte separation method (the subtype of HLA was not specified), CD14+ cells were separated by a magnetic bead method. The specific steps were as follows: 1) the blood sample was transferred into a centrifuge tube (50 mL) and diluted by adding DPBS of the same volume, and the mixture was uniformly mixed by slightly and repeatedly pipetting with a transfer pipette; 2) 18 mL of Ficoll separation solution was taken by suction and transferred to a centrifuged tube (50 mL) for later use; 3) 20 mL of diluted blood sample was slowly placed into the centrifuge tube containing the Ficoll separation solution to allow the diluted blood sample to lie on the surface of the Ficoll separation solution; 4) the mixture was centrifuged at 800 g for 25 min, and after centrifuging, monocytes in the buffer coat were carefully taken by suction and transferred into a sterile centrifuge tube (50 mL); 5) DPBS with a volume 3 times that of the monocyte solution was placed into the centrifuge tube, and uniformly mixed with the monocyte solution by slightly and repeatedly pipetting for several times, and the mixture was centrifuged at 400 g for 10 min; 6) after centrifuging, the supernatant was removed, the cell pellet at the bottom of the tube was slightly flicked, 1 mL of T009 serum-free medium was added to resuspend the cells, and the mixture was centrifuged at 400 g for 10 min; 7) PBMCs were counted, for 1×10.sup.7 cells, 20 μL of CD14 sorting magnetic beads and 80 μL of MACS buffer (buffer solution) were added and uniformly mixed with the cell mixture, the cell mixture was incubated in a refrigerator in dark at 4° C. for 15 min; 8) after the incubation, for 1×10.sup.7 cells, 1 to 2 mL of MACS buffer was added to wash the cells, and the mixture was centrifuged at 300 g for 10 min; and 9) the cell pellet was resuspended in 1 mL of MACS buffer, and screened by using a magnetic sorter, a unlabeled discharged cell suspension and labelled cells in the sorting column were respectively collected, and the cells were counted for later use.
EXAMPLE 2: CULTURING OF DCS
[0095] 1) Stimulation differentiation of CD14+ cells: the CD14+ cells derived from the colorectal tumor patient and the healthy volunteer, after being sorted, were coated onto plates according to a density of 5×10.sup.5 cells/mL, respectively, and GM-CSF (800 U/mL) and IL-4 (1,000 U/mL) were added to the medium. The cells were incubated in 5% CO.sub.2 at 37° C. for 5 days, and during the incubation, half of the medium was replaced every other day. When replacing the medium, ½ (or ⅓) of the old medium was carefully taken out of the culture dish or culture flask by suction, transferred into a new centrifuge tube (15 mL), and centrifuged at 400 g for 5 min. After the centrifugation, the supernatant was removed to collect the cell pellet, and the cell pellet was added and uniformly mixed with a fresh medium with the same volume by repeatedly pipetting. The cells were placed into the original culture dish, and cytokines GM-CSF (800 U/mL) and IL-4 (1,000 U/mL) with the same volume were added.
[0096] 2) Maturation of DCs and loading of polypeptides: on the 5th day of incubation of the immature autologous DCs, the medium was replaced, 10 μM individualized neoantigen long peptides IC-1, IC-2 or IC-3 for the colorectal tumor patient was added to the medium (the amino acid sequences of IC-1, IC-2, and IC-3 are set forth as: IC-1: WPLLVFLLPACLYLFASCCAHTFSSMS (SEQ ID NO:5); IC-2: KSLRVQKIRPSILDCNILRVEYSLLIY (SEQ ID NO:6); and IC-3: LVIPLVELSAKQVTFHIPFEVVEKVYP (SEQ ID NO:7)) to allow the immature DCs to phagocytize the long peptides, and the cells were incubated in 5% CO.sub.2 at 37° C. for 16 hours; and on the 6th day, maturation factors TNF-α (40 ng/mL), IL-6 (20 ng/mL), IL-10 (20 ng/mL), PGE2 (100 ng/mL), and PolyIC (5 μg/mL) were added to the medium for the immature DCs to induce the maturation of the DCs. The DCs derived from the healthy volunteer were not loaded with polypeptides, and on the 6th day, maturation factors TNF-α (40 ng/mL), IL-6 (20 ng/mL), IL-1β (20 ng/mL), PGE2 (100 ng/mL), and PolyIC (5 μg/mL) were added to maturate the DCs for later use.
[0097] 3) Loading of viral antigen peptides onto the autologous DCs (optionally): on the 7th day of incubation, the DCs were maturated, suspended DCs were collected and centrifuged at 400 g for 5 min; the supernatant was removed, and the cell pellet was resuspended in a serum-free DC medium and counted to adjust the cell density to 1×10.sup.6 cells/mL; 1 μM viral antigen peptides EBV_A2 or CMVpp65 were added (the amino acid sequences of EBV_A2 and CMVpp65 are ser forth as: EBV_A2: GLCTLVAML (SEQ ID NO:1), and CMVpp65: NLVPMVATV (SEQ ID NO:4)), and the cells were incubated in 5% CO.sub.2 at 37° C. for 4 hours. After incubation, the DCs loaded with the peptides were washed with a medium and centrifuged at 400 g for 5 min, and the cell pellet was collected and resuspended in a medium for later use.
EXAMPLE 3: PHENOTYPE DETECTION OF THE DCS
[0098] The DCs obtained at the previous step were stained with the following antibodies: CD80 (PE-Cy7), CD83 (APC), CD86 (PE), HLA-DR (PerCP-Cy5.5), and CD14 (APC-Cy7), respectively, and then analyzed by using a flow cytometer to detect the expression of each antibody and the maturity of the DCs.
EXAMPLE 4: PREPARATION OF A FINAL DC VACCINE
[0099] 2 days after the maturation of the DCs, a DC suspension was collected and subjected to microorganism, endotoxin, and mycoplasma tests; the qualified autologous DCs derived from the colorectal tumor patient, which did not contain bacteria, mycoplasmas, and endotoxins, were mixed with the allogenic DCs derived from the healthy volunteer according to a ratio of 20:1, 10:1, or 3:1, to obtain a novel individualized DC vaccine containing the allogenic DCs for the colorectal tumor patient. The autologous DCs derived from the colorectal tumor patient that were loaded with the relevant viral (e.g., EBV and CMV) antigen peptides of Example 2 were mixed with the allogenic DCs derived from the healthy volunteer to obtain a novel individualized DC vaccine containing the allogenic DCs and the viral antigen peptides. Similarly, a novel individualized DC vaccine only loaded with the viral antigen peptides and contain no allogenic DCs was obtained. The expression of cell markers of the different batches of novel DC vaccines is shown in Table 1.
TABLE-US-00002 TABLE 1 Expression of Markers of different batches of novel DC vaccines Batches HLA-DR (%) CD86 (%) CD80 (%) CD83 (%) No. 1 99.7% 98.1% 90.3% 67.1% No. 2 99.8% 99.2% 97.1% 73.8% No. 3 99.9% 99.8% 98.4% 75.3% No. 4 99.9% 99.4% 98.0% 74.9%
EXAMPLE: 5 IN-VITRO FUNCTION TEST
[0100] Each of the above prepared novel DC vaccines was co-cultured with autologous T lymphocytes in vitro, and the abilities of each vaccine to activate T cells, promote T cell proliferation, kill tumors, and produce cytokines were tested. Results are shown in
EXAMPLE 6: IN-VIVO MOUSE EXPERIMENT
[0101] 1) Construction of Mouse Models with an Individualized Mutation of a Colorectal Tumor Patient
[0102] First, a K562 cell line stably transfected with a specific antigen peptide mine-gene from a colorectal tumor patient was constructed by Wuhan Viraltherapy Technologies Co., Ltd. Under the entrustment of the inventors. Then, the cell line was amplified in a RPMI1640 medium containing 10% FBS in vitro until an appropriate number of cells were obtained, the cells were subcutaneously infused into 6-week-old NSG mice with immunodeficiency according to an inoculum size of 1×10.sup.7 mine-gene-K562 cells/mouse. After the infusion, the tumor tissue growth was observed duly, about 5 days later, the mouse models with the tumor tissue of 50 to 100 mm.sup.3 were selected for later use.
2) Grouping and Cell Infusion
[0103] The above successfully constructed NSG mouse models were random divided into the following 5 groups, each group included 5 mice, and different cells were infused into the mice according to the experimental scheme: [0104] a. Blank control group: each mouse was injected with 100 μL of PBS via the tail vein; [0105] b. Control DC-T cell group: each mouse was injected with T cells derived from the colorectal tumor patient activated by autologous DCs, i.e., DC-T cells, via the tail vein according to an inoculum size of 2×10.sup.7 cells/mouse, and the DC-T cells were suspended in 100 μL of PBS; [0106] c. Control allogeneic DC-T cell group: each mouse was injected with T cells derived from the colorectal tumor patient activated by allogeneic DCs, i.e., alloDC-T cells, via the tail vein according to an inoculum size of 2×10.sup.7 cells/mouse, and the alloDC-T cells were suspended in 100 μL of PBS; [0107] d. Peptide-DC-T cell group: each mouse was injected with T cells derived from the colorectal tumor patient activated by autologous DCs loaded with individualized antigen peptides, i.e., peptide-DC-T cells, via the tail vein according to an inoculum size of 2×10.sup.7 cells/mouse, and the peptide-DC-T cells were suspended in 100 μL of PBS; and [0108] e. Peptide-alloDC-DC-T cell group: each mouse was injected with T cells derived from the colorectal tumor patient activated by an DC vaccine containing allogeneic DCs and loaded with individualized antigen peptides, i.e., peptide-alloDC-DC-T cells, via the tail vein according to an inoculum size of 2×10.sup.7 cells/mouse, and the peptide-alloDC-DC-T cells were suspended in 100 μL of PBS.
3) Testing after Infusion and Result Analysis
[0109] Measurement of the diameter of the tumor and the weight of each mouse: after infusion, each mouse was weighed and the diameter of the tumor was measured every 2 days, and after the average volume of the tumor tissues of the mice in the control group was 2,500 mm.sup.3, the observation was finished. At the last observation, each mouse in each group was photographed, and the tumors were taken out and weighed. Results are shown in
[0110] Analysis of T cells in the peripheral blood: one week after infusion and at the end of observation, 2 mice were random selected from each group, 20 μL of blood was collected from each mouse via the tail vein, the proportion of human CD3+ T cells in the peripheral blood of each mouse was analyzed by using the flow cytometer. Results are shown in
TABLE-US-00003 TABLE 2 Proportion of human CD3+ T cells in the peripheral blood of each mouse in each group determined 9 d after infusion PBS peptide- peptide- Groups group DC-T alloDC-T DC-T alloDC-DC-T Proportion 4.07 11.93 13.23 13.41 13.57 (%) of T cells
[0111] Pathological observation: the subcutaneous tumor tissue of each mouse in the control group and the treatment groups was stained with hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) and then subjected to TUNEL assay to detect the tumor tissue apoptosis in each group.
[0112] Based on the above testing results, the anti-tumor effect was comprehensively evaluated in terms of the tumor growth curve, tumor inhibition rate, distribution of human T cells in the peripheral blood, and tumor tissue apoptosis in each group, etc. According to the present disclosure, the ability of the DC vaccine to activate T cells and promote proliferation of initial T cells can be effectively enhanced by adding low-dose allogeneic DCs or viral antigen peptides to a conventional DC vaccine, thereby enhancing the anti-tumor effect of the DC vaccine and DC-CTL.
[0113] Although specific embodiments of the present disclosure have been described in detail, those skilled in the art can understand that various modifications and substitutions of those details can be made based on all the discloses teachings, and these changes shall fall within the scope of protection of the present disclosure. The full scope of the present disclosure is given by the appended claims and any equivalents thereof
[0114] In the description, the content described with the terms “one embodiment”, “some embodiments”, “exemplary embodiment”, “example”, “specific example”, “some examples” or the like means that a specific feature, structure, material, or characteristic described in the embodiment or example is included in at least one embodiment or example of the present disclosure. In the description, exemplary representations of the above terms do not necessarily refer to the same embodiment or example. Furthermore, the described specific feature, structure, material or characteristic can be combined in a suitable manner in any one or more of the embodiments or examples.