About the Authors

Shinji Yoshida

Contributed equally to this work with: Shinji Yoshida, Katsunori Ikari

Affiliations Institute of Rheumatology, Tokyo Women's Medical University, Tokyo, Japan, Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Keio University School of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan

Katsunori Ikari

Contributed equally to this work with: Shinji Yoshida, Katsunori Ikari

kikari@ior.twmu.ac.jp

Affiliation Institute of Rheumatology, Tokyo Women's Medical University, Tokyo, Japan

Takefumi Furuya

Affiliation Institute of Rheumatology, Tokyo Women's Medical University, Tokyo, Japan

Yoshiaki Toyama

Affiliation Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Keio University School of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan

Atsuo Taniguchi

Affiliation Institute of Rheumatology, Tokyo Women's Medical University, Tokyo, Japan

Hisashi Yamanaka

Affiliation Institute of Rheumatology, Tokyo Women's Medical University, Tokyo, Japan

Shigeki Momohara

Affiliation Institute of Rheumatology, Tokyo Women's Medical University, Tokyo, Japan

Competing Interests

No conflict of interest has been declared by the authors.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: KI SY. Performed the experiments: SY KI. Analyzed the data: SY KI. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: KI TF YT AT HY SM. Contributed to the writing of the manuscript: SY KI.