About the Authors

Sandra Müller-Krebs

sandra.mueller@urz.uni-heidelberg.de

Affiliation Department of Nephrology, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany

Lena Weber

Affiliation Department of Nephrology, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany

Julia Tsobaneli

Affiliation Department of Nephrology, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany

Lars P. Kihm

Affiliation Department of Nephrology, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany

Jochen Reiser

Affiliation Department of Medicine, Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, Illinois, United States of America

Martin Zeier

Affiliation Department of Nephrology, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany

Vedat Schwenger

Affiliation Department of Nephrology, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany

Competing Interests

SMK, MZ, and VS received research grants from Novartis Pharma AG (Nuremberg, Germany). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. MZ and VS received lecture fees from Novartis Pharma AG (Nuremberg, Germany). The authors declare no competing interests relating to consultancy, patents, products in development or marketed products. 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: SMK VS. Performed the experiments: SMK LW JT. Analyzed the data: SMK LPK VS. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: JR. Wrote the manuscript: SMK JR MZ VS.