About the Authors

Bo Li

Affiliation Department of Medicine, Loma Linda University School of Medicine, Loma Linda, California, United States of America

David J. Baylink

Affiliation Department of Medicine, Loma Linda University School of Medicine, Loma Linda, California, United States of America

Chandra Deb

Affiliation Department of Medicine, Loma Linda University School of Medicine, Loma Linda, California, United States of America

Claudia Zannetti

Affiliation International Agency for Research on Cancer, Lyon, France

Fatima Rajaallah

Affiliation Department of Medicine, Loma Linda University School of Medicine, Loma Linda, California, United States of America

Weirong Xing

Affiliation Musculoskeletal Disease Center, Jerry L. Pettis Memorial Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Loma Linda, California, United States of America

Michael H. Walter

Affiliation Department of Medicine, Loma Linda University School of Medicine, Loma Linda, California, United States of America

K.-H. William Lau

Affiliations Department of Medicine, Loma Linda University School of Medicine, Loma Linda, California, United States of America, Musculoskeletal Disease Center, Jerry L. Pettis Memorial Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Loma Linda, California, United States of America

Xuezhong Qin

xqin@llu.edu

Affiliations Department of Medicine, Loma Linda University School of Medicine, Loma Linda, California, United States of America, Musculoskeletal Disease Center, Jerry L. Pettis Memorial Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Loma Linda, California, United States of America

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: XQ BL DJB CD WX K-HL MW. Performed the experiments: BL XQ CD FR. Analyzed the data: BL XQ. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: CZ WX. Wrote the paper: BL XQ.