About the Authors

Yanqing Zhang

Contributed equally to this work with: Yanqing Zhang, Yuan Zhang

Affiliations Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, United States of America, Department of Pathology, Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, China, Department of Medicine, Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana, United States of America

Yuan Zhang

Contributed equally to this work with: Yanqing Zhang, Yuan Zhang

Affiliation Department of Medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, United States of America

Robert N. Bone

Affiliation Department of Pathology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, United States of America

Wanxing Cui

Affiliation Department of Surgery, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, United States of America

Ji-Bin Peng

Affiliation Department of Medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, United States of America

Gene P. Siegal

Affiliations Department of Pathology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, United States of America, Department of Cell Biology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, United States of America

Hongjun Wang

Affiliation Department of Surgery, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, South Carolina, United States of America

Hongju Wu

hwu3@tulane.edu

Affiliations Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, United States of America, Department of Medicine, Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana, United States of America

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: Yuan Zhang Yanqing Zhang H. Wu. Performed the experiments: Yuan Zhang Yanqing Zhang RNB WC. Analyzed the data: Yuan Zhang Yanqing Zhang H. Wu. Wrote the paper: H. Wu. Contributed to the discussion and data analysis: J-BP GPS H. Wang. Reviewed/edited the manuscript: J-BP GPS H. Wang.