About the Authors

Josh Levitsky

Affiliations Division of Gastroenterology & Hepatology, Department of Medicine, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, United States of America, Comprehensive Transplant Center, Department of Surgery, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, United States of America

Joshua Miller

Affiliation Comprehensive Transplant Center, Department of Surgery, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, United States of America

Xuemei Huang

Affiliation Comprehensive Transplant Center, Department of Surgery, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, United States of America

Lorenzo Gallon

Affiliations Comprehensive Transplant Center, Department of Surgery, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, United States of America, Division of Nephrology, Department of Medicine, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, United States of America

Joseph R. Leventhal

Affiliation Comprehensive Transplant Center, Department of Surgery, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, United States of America

James M. Mathew

James-mathew@northwestern.edu

Affiliations Comprehensive Transplant Center, Department of Surgery, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, United States of America, Department of Microbiology-Immunology, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, United States of America

Competing Interests

The authors declare that they have received funding from a commercial source: "Novartis" in the form of a research grant (CRAD001AUSNC10T) consisting of funds for supplies and salary support. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. However, the funders approved the publication of the results. This does not alter the authors’ adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: JL JM LG JRL JMM. Performed the experiments: JL JM XH JMM. Analyzed the data: JL JM XH JMM. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: JL JM XH LG JRL JMM. Wrote the paper: JL JM LG JRL JMM.