About the Authors

Jing Wang

Contributed equally to this work with: Jing Wang, Ken Takahashi

Affiliations Department of Cardiology, Graduate School, Dalian Medical University, Dalian, China, Department of Cardiovascular Physiology, Graduate School of Medicine, Dentistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Okayama University, Okayama, Japan

Ken Takahashi

Contributed equally to this work with: Jing Wang, Ken Takahashi

takah-k2@cc.okayama-u.ac.jp

Affiliation Department of Cardiovascular Physiology, Graduate School of Medicine, Dentistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Okayama University, Okayama, Japan

Hulin Piao

Affiliations Department of Cardiovascular Physiology, Graduate School of Medicine, Dentistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Okayama University, Okayama, Japan, Department of Cardiovascular Surgery, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Jilin University, Changchun, China

Peng Qu

Affiliation Department of Cardiology, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Dalian Medical University, Dalian, China

Keiji Naruse

Affiliation Department of Cardiovascular Physiology, Graduate School of Medicine, Dentistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Okayama University, Okayama, Japan

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: KT JW HP. Performed the experiments: JW KT HP. Analyzed the data: JW KT HP KN PQ. Wrote the paper: JW KT HP KN PQ.