About the Authors

Yasumasa Kimura

Contributed equally to this work with: Yasumasa Kimura, Takahiro Soma

y.kimura.sc@gmail.com (YK); matthias.harbers@riken.jp (MH)

Current Address: Division of Systems Immunology, Institute of Medical Science, The University of Tokyo, 4-6-1 Shirokanedai, Minato-ku, Tokyo, 108–8639, Japan.

Affiliations K.K. DNAFORM, 75–1, Ono-cho, Tsurumi-ku, Yokohama, Kanagawa, 230–0046, Japan, RIKEN Center for Life Science Technologies, Division of Genomic Technologies, 1-7-22 Suehiro-cho, Tsurumi-ku, Yokohama, Kanagawa, 230–0045, Japan

Takahiro Soma

Contributed equally to this work with: Yasumasa Kimura, Takahiro Soma

Affiliation RIKEN Center for Life Science Technologies, Division of Genomic Technologies, 1-7-22 Suehiro-cho, Tsurumi-ku, Yokohama, Kanagawa, 230–0045, Japan

Naoko Kasahara

Current Address: Department of Bioclinical Informatics, Tohoku Medical Megabank Organization, Tohoku University, 2–1 Seiryo-machi, Aoba-ku, Sendai, Miyagi, 980–8573, Japan.

Affiliation RIKEN Omics Science Center, 1-7-22 Suehiro-cho, Tsurumi-ku, Yokohama, Kanagawa, 230–0045, Japan

Diane Delobel

Affiliation RIKEN Center for Life Science Technologies, Division of Genomic Technologies, 1-7-22 Suehiro-cho, Tsurumi-ku, Yokohama, Kanagawa, 230–0045, Japan

Takeshi Hanami

Affiliation RIKEN Center for Life Science Technologies, Division of Genomic Technologies, 1-7-22 Suehiro-cho, Tsurumi-ku, Yokohama, Kanagawa, 230–0045, Japan

Yuki Tanaka

Affiliation RIKEN Center for Life Science Technologies, Division of Genomic Technologies, 1-7-22 Suehiro-cho, Tsurumi-ku, Yokohama, Kanagawa, 230–0045, Japan

Michiel J. L. de Hoon

Affiliation RIKEN Center for Life Science Technologies, Division of Genomic Technologies, 1-7-22 Suehiro-cho, Tsurumi-ku, Yokohama, Kanagawa, 230–0045, Japan

Yoshihide Hayashizaki

Affiliation RIKEN Preventive Medicine & Diagnosis Innovation Program, 2–1 Hirosawa, Wako-shi, Saitama, 351–0198, Japan

Kengo Usui

Affiliations RIKEN Center for Life Science Technologies, Division of Genomic Technologies, 1-7-22 Suehiro-cho, Tsurumi-ku, Yokohama, Kanagawa, 230–0045, Japan, RIKEN Preventive Medicine & Diagnosis Innovation Program, 2–1 Hirosawa, Wako-shi, Saitama, 351–0198, Japan

Matthias Harbers

y.kimura.sc@gmail.com (YK); matthias.harbers@riken.jp (MH)

Affiliation RIKEN Center for Life Science Technologies, Division of Genomic Technologies, 1-7-22 Suehiro-cho, Tsurumi-ku, Yokohama, Kanagawa, 230–0045, Japan

Competing Interests

YK and MH had been employees of K.K. DNAFORM, a company holding commercial rights to Eprimer and Eprobe technology. YK is an inventor of Japanese Patent Application 2012-158229 (”Nucleic acid probe, design method of nucleic acid probe, and detection method for target sequence”, WO 2014/013954 A1). TS and TH are inventors of Japanese Patent Application 2012-091400 (”New fluorescent material for labeling biomolecules”) and Japanese Patent Application 2012-158229 (”Nucleic acid probe, design method of nucleic acid probe, and detection method for target sequence”, WO 2014/013954 A1). YH is an inventor of Japanese Patent No. 4370385 (”Primer, primer set, and nucleic acid amplification method and mutation detection method using the same”, US8067162 B2, EP1970453 B1) and Japanese Patent Application 2012-091400 (”New fluorescent material for labeling biomolecules”) and Japanese Patent Application 2012-158229 (”Nucleic acid probe, design method of nucleic acid probe, and detection method for target sequence”, WO 2014/013954 A1). There are no further patents, products in development or marketed products to declare. This does not alter the authors' adherence to all the PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: YK TS TH YT YH KU MH. Performed the experiments: TS DD. Analyzed the data: YK TS DD TH MH. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: YK. Wrote the paper: YK MH. Designed the software: YK NK MJLdH. Developed the software: YK NK.