About the Authors

Herman A. van Wietmarschen

Contributed equally to this work with: Herman A. van Wietmarschen, Weidong Dai

h.vanwietmarschen@lacdr.leidenuniv.nl (HvW); xugw@dicp.ac.cn (GX)

Affiliations Division of Analytical Biosciences, LACDR, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands, Sino-Dutch centre for Preventive and Personalized Medicine, Zeist, The Netherlands

Weidong Dai

Contributed equally to this work with: Herman A. van Wietmarschen, Weidong Dai

Affiliation CAS Key Laboratory of Separation Science for Analytical Chemistry, Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dalian, China

Anita J. van der Kooij

Affiliation Mathematical Institute, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands

Theo H. Reijmers

Affiliations Division of Analytical Biosciences, LACDR, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands, Netherlands Metabolomics Centre, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands

Yan Schroën

Affiliations Sino-Dutch centre for Preventive and Personalized Medicine, Zeist, The Netherlands, Oxrider, Education and Research, Nieuwegein, The Netherlands

Mei Wang

Affiliations Sino-Dutch centre for Preventive and Personalized Medicine, Zeist, The Netherlands, SU BioMedicine, Utrechtseweg, Zeist, The Netherlands

Zhiliang Xu

Affiliation College of Life Science Company Limited, Hangzhou, China

Xinchang Wang

Affiliation Zhejiang Xinhua hospital Rheumatology and Immunology Department, HangZhou, China

Hongwei Kong

Affiliation CAS Key Laboratory of Separation Science for Analytical Chemistry, Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dalian, China

Guowang Xu

h.vanwietmarschen@lacdr.leidenuniv.nl (HvW); xugw@dicp.ac.cn (GX)

Affiliation CAS Key Laboratory of Separation Science for Analytical Chemistry, Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dalian, China

Thomas Hankemeier

Affiliations Division of Analytical Biosciences, LACDR, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands, Netherlands Metabolomics Centre, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands

Jacqueline J. Meulman

Affiliation Mathematical Institute, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands

Jan van der Greef

Affiliations Division of Analytical Biosciences, LACDR, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands, Sino-Dutch centre for Preventive and Personalized Medicine, Zeist, The Netherlands, SU BioMedicine, Utrechtseweg, Zeist, The Netherlands, TNO Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research, TNO Pharma, Zeist, The Netherlands

Competing Interests

Dr. Mei Wang is employed by SUBiomedicine, Dr. Zhiliang Xu is employed by the College of Life Science Company Ltd. and Prof. Jan van der Greef is employed by TNO. 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: HAW JG THR JJM. Performed the experiments: XW WD. Analyzed the data: HAW THR YS JJM AJK. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: ZX HK TH XW GX MW. Wrote the paper: HAW WD. Conducted patient recruitment: XW ZX GX HK MW.