About the Authors

Julia C. Engelmann

julia.engelmann@ukr.de (JCE); rainer.spang@ukr.de (RS); claus.hellerbrand@ukr.de (CH)

Affiliation Department of Statistical Bioinformatics, University of Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany

Thomas Amann

Affiliation Department of Internal Medicine I, University Hospital Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany

Birgitta Ott-Rötzer

Affiliation Department of Internal Medicine I, University Hospital Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany

Margit Nützel

Affiliation Department of Internal Medicine I, University Hospital Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany

Yvonne Reinders

Affiliation Institute of Functional Genomics, University of Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany

Jörg Reinders

Affiliation Institute of Functional Genomics, University of Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany

Wolfgang E. Thasler

Affiliation Biobank under the authority of Human Tissue and Cell Research (HTCR) and Center for Liver Cell Research, Department of General, Visceral, Transplantation, Vascular and Thoracic Surgery, Hospital of Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich, Munich, Germany

Theresa Kristl

Affiliation Department of Molecular Biology, Division of Chemistry and Bioanalytics, University of Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria

Andreas Teufel

Affiliation Department of Internal Medicine I, University Hospital Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany

Christian G. Huber

Affiliation Department of Molecular Biology, Division of Chemistry and Bioanalytics, University of Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria

Peter J. Oefner

Affiliation Institute of Functional Genomics, University of Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany

Rainer Spang

Contributed equally to this work with: Rainer Spang, Claus Hellerbrand

julia.engelmann@ukr.de (JCE); rainer.spang@ukr.de (RS); claus.hellerbrand@ukr.de (CH)

Affiliation Department of Statistical Bioinformatics, University of Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany

Claus Hellerbrand

Contributed equally to this work with: Rainer Spang, Claus Hellerbrand

julia.engelmann@ukr.de (JCE); rainer.spang@ukr.de (RS); claus.hellerbrand@ukr.de (CH)

Affiliation Department of Internal Medicine I, University Hospital Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: PJO RS CH. Performed the experiments: JCE TA BOR MN YR JR TK AT CGH. Analyzed the data: JCE TA BOR MN YR JR TK AT CGH. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: WET. Wrote the paper: JCE PJO RS CH.