About the Authors

Shiliang Li

Contributed equally to this work with: Shiliang Li, Sevil Korkmaz

Affiliations Department of Cardiac Surgery, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany, Department of Cardiovascular Surgery, Union Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China

Sevil Korkmaz

Contributed equally to this work with: Shiliang Li, Sevil Korkmaz

korkmaz@uni-heidelberg.de

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

Sivakkanan Loganathan

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

Alexander Weymann

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

Tamás Radovits

Affiliation Heart Center, Semmelweis University, Budapest, Hungary

Enikő Barnucz

Affiliations Department of Cardiac Surgery, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany, Heart Center, Semmelweis University, Budapest, Hungary

Kristóf Hirschberg

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

Peter Hegedüs

Affiliations Department of Cardiac Surgery, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany, Heart Center, Semmelweis University, Budapest, Hungary

Yan Zhou

Affiliation Department of Otolaryngology, Union Hospital of Tongji Medical College, Hua-Zhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China

Liang Tao

Affiliation Department of Cardiac Surgery, Wuhan Asia Heart Hospital, Wuhan, China

Szabolcs Páli

Affiliations Department of Cardiac Surgery, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany, Heart Center, Semmelweis University, Budapest, Hungary

Gábor Veres

Affiliations Department of Cardiac Surgery, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany, Department of Cardiac Surgery, Semmelweis University, Budapest, Hungary

Matthias Karck

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

Gábor Szabó

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

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: SK GS. Performed the experiments: S. Li SK S. Loganathan TR GV. Analyzed the data: S. Li SK KH AW EB PH YZ LT SP GV GS. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: MK GS. Wrote the paper: SK S. Li TR GS.