About the Authors

Khetam Ghannam

Affiliation Department of Rheumatology and Clinical Immunology, Charité University Hospital, Berlin, Germany

Lorena Martinez-Gamboa

Affiliation Department of Rheumatology and Clinical Immunology, Charité University Hospital, Berlin, Germany

Lydia Spengler

Affiliation Department of Rheumatology and Clinical Immunology, Charité University Hospital, Berlin, Germany

Sabine Krause

Affiliation Friedrich Baur Institute, Ludwig Maximilians University, Munich, Germany

Biljana Smiljanovic

Affiliation Department of Rheumatology and Clinical Immunology, Charité University Hospital, Berlin, Germany

Marc Bonin

Affiliation Department of Rheumatology and Clinical Immunology, Charité University Hospital, Berlin, Germany

Salyan Bhattarai

Affiliation Department of Rheumatology and Clinical Immunology, Charité University Hospital, Berlin, Germany

Andreas Grützkau

Affiliation German Arthritis Research Center, Berlin, Germany

Gerd-R. Burmester

Affiliation Department of Rheumatology and Clinical Immunology, Charité University Hospital, Berlin, Germany

Thomas Häupl

Contributed equally to this work with: Thomas Häupl, Eugen Feist

thomas.haeupl@charite.de

Affiliation Department of Rheumatology and Clinical Immunology, Charité University Hospital, Berlin, Germany

Eugen Feist

Contributed equally to this work with: Thomas Häupl, Eugen Feist

Affiliation Department of Rheumatology and Clinical Immunology, Charité University Hospital, Berlin, Germany

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: EF KG TH G-RB SK. Performed the experiments: KG LM-G BS MB SB LS AG. Analyzed the data: TH KG MB SB BS EF LM-G. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: EF TH AG BS MB SB LS SK. Wrote the paper: KG TH EF G-RB LM-G SK BS AG SB MB LS.