About the Authors

Masamitsu Kono

Contributed equally to this work with: Masamitsu Kono, Muneki Hotomi

Affiliation Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Wakayama Medical University, Wakayama-city, Wakayama, Japan

Muneki Hotomi

Contributed equally to this work with: Masamitsu Kono, Muneki Hotomi

mhotomi@wakayama-med.ac.jp

Affiliation Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Wakayama Medical University, Wakayama-city, Wakayama, Japan

Susan K. Hollingshead

Affiliation Department of Microbiology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, United States of America

David E. Briles

Affiliation Department of Microbiology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, United States of America

Noboru Yamanaka

Affiliation Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Wakayama Medical University, Wakayama-city, Wakayama, Japan

Competing Interests

David E. Briles and Susan K. Hollingshead are faculty at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, which owns some intellectual property relating to PspA. This does not alter the authors' adherence to all the PLoS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: MH MK. Performed the experiments: MH MK. Analyzed the data: MH MK SKH DEB NY. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: MH MK SKH DEB NY. Wrote the paper: MH MK SKH DEB NY.