About the Authors
- Charles N. Rudick
-
Contributed equally to this work with: Charles N. Rudick, Aisha K. Taylor
Affiliation Department of Urology, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, Chicago, Illinois, United States of America
- Aisha K. Taylor
-
Contributed equally to this work with: Charles N. Rudick, Aisha K. Taylor
Current address: Department of Urology, Case Western Reserve, Cleveland, OH, United States of America
Affiliation Department of Urology, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, Chicago, Illinois, United States of America
- Ryan E. Yaggie
-
Affiliation Department of Urology, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, Chicago, Illinois, United States of America
- Anthony J. Schaeffer
-
Affiliation Department of Urology, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, Chicago, Illinois, United States of America
- David J. Klumpp
-
* E-mail: d-klumpp@northwestern.edu
Affiliations Department of Urology, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, Chicago, Illinois, United States of America, Microbiology-Immunology, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, Chicago, Illinois, United States of America
Competing Interests
The authors have the following interests: Northwestern University holds a patent for skewing immune responses by strains with altered LPS structures (Billips et al., Live-attenuated compositions for bacterial infections, US 8,709,444 B2, issued 29 April, 2014) and a pending application for pain therapies based on analgesic bacteria (Rudick et al., Compositions and methods for treatment of pain, provisional 61.450,937, filed 09 March, 2011). D.J.K. and A.J.S. are incorporated in the State of Illinois as ProbioTx, Inc. and pursue commercial development of strains described here, with the support of Northwestern University and the Chicago Innovation Mentors program. D.J.K. and A.J.S. are also officers in Gold Coast Therapeutics, Inc., a company targeting mast cells in urologic disease. This does not alter the authors' adherence to all the PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials. All proprietary bacterial strains from Northwestern University described in provisional patent 61.450,937 and this article will be shared upon request through Northwestern's INVO under a Material Transfer Agreement authorizing non-commercial use.
Author Contributions
Conceived and designed the experiments: CNR AKT REY AJS DJK. Performed the experiments: CNR AKT REY. Analyzed the data: CNR AKT REY AJS DJK. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: AJS. Wrote the paper: CNR AKT REY AJS DJK.