About the Authors

Sili Zou

Affiliations Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Michael E. DeBakey Department of Surgery, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas, United States of America, Department of Cardiovascular Surgery, Texas Heart Institute at St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital, Houston, Texas, United States of America, Department of Vascular Surgery, Changhai Hospital, Second Military Medical University, Shanghai, China

Pingping Ren

Affiliations Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Michael E. DeBakey Department of Surgery, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas, United States of America, Department of Cardiovascular Surgery, Texas Heart Institute at St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital, Houston, Texas, United States of America

Mary Nguyen

Affiliations Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Michael E. DeBakey Department of Surgery, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas, United States of America, Department of Cardiovascular Surgery, Texas Heart Institute at St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital, Houston, Texas, United States of America

Joseph S. Coselli

Affiliations Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Michael E. DeBakey Department of Surgery, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas, United States of America, Department of Cardiovascular Surgery, Texas Heart Institute at St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital, Houston, Texas, United States of America

Ying H. Shen

hyshen@bcm.edu (YHS); slemaire@bcm.edu (SAL)

Affiliations Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Michael E. DeBakey Department of Surgery, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas, United States of America, Department of Cardiovascular Surgery, Texas Heart Institute at St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital, Houston, Texas, United States of America

Scott A. LeMaire

hyshen@bcm.edu (YHS); slemaire@bcm.edu (SAL)

Affiliations Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Michael E. DeBakey Department of Surgery, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas, United States of America, Department of Cardiovascular Surgery, Texas Heart Institute at St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital, Houston, Texas, United States of America

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: YHS SAL. Performed the experiments: SZ PR MN. Analyzed the data: SZ YHS. Wrote the paper: SZ YHS JSC SAL.