About the Authors

Sven Pischke

Affiliation Department of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Endocrinology, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany

Anett Gisa

Affiliation Department of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Endocrinology, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany

Pothakamuri Venkata Suneetha

Affiliation Department of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Endocrinology, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany

Steffen Björn Wiegand

Affiliation Department of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Endocrinology, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany

Richard Taubert

Affiliation Department of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Endocrinology, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany

Jerome Schlue

Affiliation Institute for Pathology, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany

Karsten Wursthorn

Affiliation Department of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Endocrinology, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany

Heike Bantel

Affiliation Department of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Endocrinology, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany

Regina Raupach

Affiliation Department of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Endocrinology, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany

Birgit Bremer

Affiliation Department of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Endocrinology, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany

Behrend Johann Zacher

Affiliation Department of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Endocrinology, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany

Reinhold Ernst Schmidt

Affiliation Department of Clinical Immunology, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany

Michael Peter Manns

Affiliation Department of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Endocrinology, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany

Kinan Rifai

Affiliation Department of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Endocrinology, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany

Torsten Witte

Affiliation Department of Clinical Immunology, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany

Heiner Wedemeyer

Wedemeyer.Heiner@mh-hannover.de

Affiliation Department of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Endocrinology, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: SP MPM HW RR BB TW. Performed the experiments: RR BB SP SW BZ HB KR. Analyzed the data: RES RT KW JS PVS AG. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: AG JS RR BB. Wrote the paper: SP HW MPM TW KR HB.