About the Authors

Karen M. Ashe

Affiliation Genzyme Corporation, Framingham, Massachusetts, United States of America

Dinesh Bangari

Affiliation Genzyme Corporation, Framingham, Massachusetts, United States of America

Lingyun Li

Affiliation Genzyme Corporation, Framingham, Massachusetts, United States of America

Mario A. Cabrera-Salazar

Affiliation Genzyme Corporation, Framingham, Massachusetts, United States of America

Scott D. Bercury

Affiliation Genzyme Corporation, Framingham, Massachusetts, United States of America

Jennifer B. Nietupski

Affiliation Genzyme Corporation, Framingham, Massachusetts, United States of America

Christopher G. F. Cooper

Affiliation Genzyme Corporation, Framingham, Massachusetts, United States of America

Johannes M. F. G. Aerts

Affiliation Academic Medical Center, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Edward R. Lee

Affiliation Genzyme Corporation, Framingham, Massachusetts, United States of America

Diane P. Copeland

Affiliation Genzyme Corporation, Framingham, Massachusetts, United States of America

Seng H. Cheng

Affiliation Genzyme Corporation, Framingham, Massachusetts, United States of America

Ronald K. Scheule

Affiliation Genzyme Corporation, Framingham, Massachusetts, United States of America

John Marshall

john.marshall@genzyme.com

Affiliation Genzyme Corporation, Framingham, Massachusetts, United States of America

Competing Interests

The authors have read the journal's policy and have the following conflicts: Karen Ashe, Dinesh Bangari, Lingyun Li, Mario Cabrera-Salazar, Scott Bercury, Jennifer Nietupski, Christopher Cooper, Edward Lee, Diane Copeland, Seng Cheng, Ronald Scheule and John Marshall are all employees of Genzyme Corporation (a subsidiary of Sanofi-aventis Group). Johannes Aerts has received reimbursements of expenses and honoraria for lectures on lysosomal storage diseases from Genzyme Corporation, Shire HGT and Actelion. Honoraria have been transferred to the Gaucher Stichting, a foundation that supports research in the field of lysosomal storage disorders. Johannes Aerts is inventor on a patent (US Patent # 6,177,447 B1 issued Jan. 23, 2001) covering therapeutic applications for Genz-529468 and has received an unrestricted study grant from Genzyme Corporation to investigate modulation of sphingolipid metabolism. 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: KMA DB DPC SHC RKS JM. Performed the experiments: KMA DB LL MAC-S SDB JBN JM. Analyzed the data: KMA DB LL JMFGA SHC RKS JM. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: DB CGFC JMFGA ERL JM. Wrote the paper: SHC RKS JM.