About the Authors

Lishi Wang

Affiliations Department of Orthopedic Surgery and BME, Campbell-Clinic, University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Memphis, Tennessee, United States of America, Department of Basic Medical Research, Inner Mongolia Medical University, Inner Mongolia, China

Yan Jiao

Affiliations Department of Orthopedic Surgery and BME, Campbell-Clinic, University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Memphis, Tennessee, United States of America, Mudanjiang Medical College, Mudanjiang, PR China

Yanhong Cao

Affiliations Institute of Kaschin-Beck Disease, Center for Endemic Disease Control, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Harbin Medical University; Key Laboratory of Etiologic Epidemiology, Education Bureau of Heilongjiang Province and Ministry of Health (23618104), Harbin, China, Department of Orthopedic Surgery and BME, Campbell-Clinic, University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Memphis, Tennessee, United States of America

Gaifen Liu

Affiliation Department. of Neurology, Beijing Tiantan Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China

Yongjun Wang

Affiliation Department. of Neurology, Beijing Tiantan Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China

Weikuan Gu

wgu@uthsc.edu

Affiliation Department of Orthopedic Surgery and BME, Campbell-Clinic, University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Memphis, Tennessee, United States of America

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: LSW JJ YJW WKG. Performed the experiments: LSW YHC GFL. Analyzed the data: LSW YJ WKG. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: WKG YJW. Wrote the paper: LSW YHC GFL WKG.