About the Authors

Chih-Sheng Chu

Affiliations Division of Cardiology, Department of Internal Medicine, Kaohsiung Medical University Hospital, Kaohsiung Medical University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan, Graduate Institute of Medicine, Kaohsiung Medical University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan, Department of Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas, United States of America

Yu-Chen Wang

Affiliations Department of Vascular & Medicinal Research, Texas Heart Institute, Houston, Texas, United States of America, Division of Cardiology, Department of Internal Medicine, China Medical University Hospital, Taichung, Taiwan

Long-Sheng Lu

Affiliations Department of Molecular Biology, Texas Heart Institute, Houston, Texas, United States of America, Department of Medicine, National Research Institute of Chinese Medicine, Taipei, Taiwan

Brian Walton

Affiliation Department of Vulnerable Plaque Research, Texas Heart Institute, Houston, Texas, United States of America

H. Ramazan Yilmaz

Affiliations Department of Vascular & Medicinal Research, Texas Heart Institute, Houston, Texas, United States of America, Department of Basic Medical Sciences, Mevlana University, Konya, Turkey

Roger Y. Huang

Affiliation Department of Vascular & Medicinal Research, Texas Heart Institute, Houston, Texas, United States of America

Tatsuya Sawamura

Affiliation Department of Vascular Physiology, National Cerebral and Cardiovascular Center, Osaka, Japan

Richard A. F. Dixon

Affiliation Department of Molecular Cardiology, Texas Heart Institute, Houston, Texas, United States of America

Wen-Ter Lai

Affiliation Division of Cardiology, Department of Internal Medicine, Kaohsiung Medical University Hospital, Kaohsiung Medical University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan

Chu-Huang Chen

xlu@texasheart.org (JL); cchen@texasheart.org (C-HC))

Affiliations Department of Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas, United States of America, Department of Vascular & Medicinal Research, Texas Heart Institute, Houston, Texas, United States of America, L5 Research Center, China Medical University Hospital, Taichung, Taiwan, Graduate Institute of Medical Science, China Medical University, Taichung, Taiwan

Jonathan Lu

xlu@texasheart.org (JL); cchen@texasheart.org (C-HC))

Affiliation Department of Vascular & Medicinal Research, Texas Heart Institute, Houston, Texas, United States of America

Competing Interests

The work described in this study was supported in part by a research grant from Merck/Schering-Plough Pharmaceuticals. This does not alter the authors' adherence to all of the PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: CSC TS WTL CHC JL. Performed the experiments: CSC YCW LSL HRY RYH JL. Analyzed the data: CSC YCW LSL BW HRY RYH RAFD CHC JL. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: CSC TS RAFD WTL CHC JL. Wrote the paper: CSC YCW BW JL. Revised the manuscript: CSC LSL BW HRY RYH TS RAFD WTL CHC JL.