About the Authors

Takao Watanabe

Affiliation Department of Gastroenterology and Metabology, Ehime University Graduate School of Medicine, Toon, Ehime, Japan

Yoichi Hiasa

hiasa@m.ehime-u.ac.jp

Affiliation Department of Gastroenterology and Metabology, Ehime University Graduate School of Medicine, Toon, Ehime, Japan

Yoshio Tokumoto

Affiliation Department of Gastroenterology and Metabology, Ehime University Graduate School of Medicine, Toon, Ehime, Japan

Masashi Hirooka

Affiliation Department of Gastroenterology and Metabology, Ehime University Graduate School of Medicine, Toon, Ehime, Japan

Masanori Abe

Affiliation Department of Gastroenterology and Metabology, Ehime University Graduate School of Medicine, Toon, Ehime, Japan

Yoshio Ikeda

Affiliation Department of Gastroenterology and Metabology, Ehime University Graduate School of Medicine, Toon, Ehime, Japan

Bunzo Matsuura

Affiliation Department of Gastroenterology and Metabology, Ehime University Graduate School of Medicine, Toon, Ehime, Japan

Raymond T. Chung

Affiliation Gastrointestinal Unit, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America

Morikazu Onji

Affiliation Department of Gastroenterology and Metabology, Ehime University Graduate School of Medicine, Toon, Ehime, Japan

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: TW YH MO. Performed the experiments: TW YH YT. Analyzed the data: TW YH. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: TW YH YT MH. Wrote the paper: TW YH RTC. Manuscript editing: TW YH YT MH MA YI BM RTC MO.