About the Authors

Li Zhi

Affiliations Department of Internal Medicine, The First Affiliated Hospital of Shantou University Medical College, Shantou, Guangdong, China, Department of Internal Medicine, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Shantou University Medical College, Shantou, Guangdong, China, Department of Internal Medicine, Chaozhou People’s Hospital, Chaozhou, Guangdong, China

Zhu Yuzhang

Affiliation Department of Internal Medicine, The Second Hospital of Jiaxing City, Jiaxing, Zhejiang, China

Huang Tianliang

Affiliation Department of Internal Medicine, The First Affiliated Hospital of Shantou University Medical College, Shantou, Guangdong, China

Ichiro Hisatome

Affiliation Division of Regenerative Medicine and Therapeutics, Institute of Regenerative Medicine and Biofunction, Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Tottori University, Yonago, Japan

Tetsuya Yamamoto

Affiliation Department of Internal Medicine, Hyogo College of Medicine, Nishinomiya, Hyogo, Japan

Cheng Jidong

jidongcheng36@126.com

Affiliation Department of Internal Medicine, The First Affiliated Hospital of Shantou University Medical College, Shantou, Guangdong, China

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: LZ CJ. Performed the experiments: LZ ZY. Analyzed the data: HT TY. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: IH. Wrote the paper: LZ.