About the Authors

Ai Peng

Contributed equally to this work with: Ai Peng, Tianfu Wu

Affiliations Department of Nephrology, Shanghai Tenth People's Hospital of Tongji University, Shanghai, China, Department of Pathology, UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas, United States of America

Tianfu Wu

Contributed equally to this work with: Ai Peng, Tianfu Wu

Affiliation Division of Rheumatology, Department of Internal Medicine, UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas, United States of America

Caihong Zeng

Affiliation Research Institute of Nephrology, Jinling Hospital, Nanjing University School of Medicine, Nanjing, China

Dinesh Rakheja

Affiliation Department of Pathology, UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas, United States of America

Jiankun Zhu

Affiliation Division of Rheumatology, Department of Internal Medicine, UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas, United States of America

Ting Ye

Affiliation Department of Pathology, UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas, United States of America

Jack Hutcheson

Affiliation Division of Rheumatology, Department of Internal Medicine, UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas, United States of America

Nosratola D. Vaziri

Affiliation Division of Nephrology and Hypertension, University of California Irvine, Irvine, California, United States of America

Zhihong Liu

joseph.zhou@ymail.com (XJZ); Chandra.mohan@utsouthwestern.edu (CM); zhihong-liu@hotmail.com (ZL)

Affiliation Research Institute of Nephrology, Jinling Hospital, Nanjing University School of Medicine, Nanjing, China

Chandra Mohan

joseph.zhou@ymail.com (XJZ); Chandra.mohan@utsouthwestern.edu (CM); zhihong-liu@hotmail.com (ZL)

Affiliation Division of Rheumatology, Department of Internal Medicine, UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas, United States of America

Xin J. Zhou

joseph.zhou@ymail.com (XJZ); Chandra.mohan@utsouthwestern.edu (CM); zhihong-liu@hotmail.com (ZL)

Current address: Renal Path Diagnostics, Pathologists BioMedical Laboratories, Lewisville, Texas, United States of America

Affiliation Department of Pathology, UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas, United States of America

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: AP CM NDV ZL XJZ. Performed the experiments: AP TW CZ JZ TY JH. Analyzed the data: AP TW CZ DR TY ZL JH CM XJZ. Wrote the paper: AP DR NDV ZL CM XJZ.