About the Authors
- Lidia Del Piccolo
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Affiliation Department of Medicine and Public Health, University of Verona, Verona, Italy
- Erika Pietrolongo
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Affiliation Department of Neuroscience, Imaging and Clinical Sciences, G. d’Annunzio University of Chieti-Pescara, Chieti, Italy
- Davide Radice
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Affiliation Division of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, European Institute of Oncology, Milan, Italy
- Carla Tortorella
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Affiliation Departments of Basic Medical Sciences, Neurosciences and Sense Organs, University of Bari, Bari, Italy
- Paolo Confalonieri
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Affiliation Unit of Neuroimmunology, Foundation IRCCS Neurological Institute C. Besta, Milan, Italy
- Maura Pugliatti
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Affiliation Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, University of Sassari, Sassari, Italy
- Alessandra Lugaresi
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Affiliation Department of Neuroscience, Imaging and Clinical Sciences, G. d’Annunzio University of Chieti-Pescara, Chieti, Italy
- Andrea Giordano
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Affiliation Unit of Neuroepidemiology, Foundation IRCCS Neurological Institute C. Besta, Milan, Italy
- Christoph Heesen
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Affiliation Institute for Neuroimmunology and Clinical MS Research, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany
- Alessandra Solari
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* E-mail: solari@istituto-besta.it
Affiliation Unit of Neuroepidemiology, Foundation IRCCS Neurological Institute C. Besta, Milan, Italy
- AutoMS Project
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¶Membership of the AutoMS Project is provided in the Acknowledgments.
Competing Interests
The authors of this manuscript have the following competing interests: EP has received travel grants from Associazione Italiana Sclerosi Multipla (AISM) and Sanofi; she also received research grants from AISM and was a consultant of "Fondazione Cesare Serono". AL has been an advisory board member for Bayer, Biogen Idec, Merck Serono, Novartis, and Genzyme. She received travel grants and honoraria from Bayer, Biogen Idec, Merck Serono, Novartis, Sanofi and Teva, and research grants from Bayer, Biogen Idec, Merck Serono, Novartis, Sanofi and Teva. She has also received travel and research grants from AISM and was a consultant of “Fondazione Cesare Serono”. CH has received financial support from Bayer Schering, Biogen Idec, Merck Serono and Teva. AS has been a board member of Biogen Idec and Novartis, and has received speaker honoraria from Genzyme, Merck Serono and the Fondazione Serono. All other authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest. The authors confirm that this declaration does not alter the authors’ adherence to all PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.
Author Contributions
Conceived and designed the experiments: LDP CH AS. Performed the experiments: EP CT PC MP AL. Analyzed the data: LDP EP AG DR AS. Wrote the paper: LDP EP DR CT PC MP AL AG CH AS.