About the Authors

Kazufumi Honda

Affiliation Division of Chemotherapy and Clinical Research, National Cancer Center Research Institute, Tokyo, Japan

Takuji Okusaka

Affiliation Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic Oncology Division, National Cancer Center Hospital, Tokyo, Japan

Klaus Felix

Affiliation Department of Surgery, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany

Shoji Nakamori

Affiliation Department of Surgery, Osaka National Hospital, National Hospital Organization, Osaka, Japan

Naohiro Sata

Affiliation Department of Surgery, Jichi Medical University, Shimotsuke, Japan

Hideo Nagai

Affiliation Department of Surgery, Jichi Medical University, Shimotsuke, Japan

Tatsuya Ioka

Affiliation Department of Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic Oncology, Osaka Medical Center for Cancer and Cardiovascular Diseases, Osaka, Japan

Akihiko Tsuchida

Affiliation Third Department of Surgery, Tokyo Medical University, Tokyo, Japan

Takeshi Shimahara

Affiliation Department of Oral Surgery, Osaka Medical College, Osaka, Japan

Masashi Shimahara

Affiliation Department of Oral Surgery, Osaka Medical College, Osaka, Japan

Yohichi Yasunami

Affiliation Department of Regenerative Medicine and Transplantation, Fukuoka University Faculty of Medicine, Fukuoka, Japan

Hideya Kuwabara

Affiliation BioBusiness Group, Mitsui Knowledge Industry, Tokyo, Japan

Tomohiro Sakuma

Affiliation BioBusiness Group, Mitsui Knowledge Industry, Tokyo, Japan

Yoshihiko Otsuka

Affiliation Pancreatic Cancer Diagnosis Project, Molecuence Corporation, Yokohama, Japan

Norihito Ota

Affiliation Pancreatic Cancer Diagnosis Project, Molecuence Corporation, Yokohama, Japan

Miki Shitashige

Affiliation Division of Chemotherapy and Clinical Research, National Cancer Center Research Institute, Tokyo, Japan

Tomoo Kosuge

Affiliation Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic Surgery Division, National Cancer Center Hospital, Tokyo, Japan

Markus W. Büchler

Affiliation Department of Surgery, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany

Tesshi Yamada

tyamada@ncc.go.jp

Affiliation Division of Chemotherapy and Clinical Research, National Cancer Center Research Institute, Tokyo, Japan

Competing Interests

HK and TS are the employees of Mitsui Knowledge Industry, and YO and NO used to belong to Molecuence Corporation. This does not alter the authors' adherence to all the PLoS ONE policies on sharing data and materials. The authors have declared that no other competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: KH TY. Performed the experiments: KH YO NO. Analyzed the data: KH HK T. Sakuma M. Shitashige. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: TO KF SN NS HN TI AT T. Shimahara M. Shimahara YY TK MWB. Wrote the paper: KH TY.