About the Authors

Akul Singhania

Affiliation Clinical and Experimental Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, University of Southampton, Southampton, United Kingdom

Hitasha Rupani

Affiliation Clinical and Experimental Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, University of Southampton, Southampton, United Kingdom

Nivenka Jayasekera

Affiliation Clinical and Experimental Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, University of Southampton, Southampton, United Kingdom

Simon Lumb

Affiliation UCB Celltech, Slough, United Kingdom

Paul Hales

Affiliation UCB Celltech, Slough, United Kingdom

Neil Gozzard

Affiliation UCB Celltech, Slough, United Kingdom

Donna E. Davies

Affiliations Clinical and Experimental Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, University of Southampton, Southampton, United Kingdom, Southampton NIHR Respiratory Biomedical Research Unit, Southampton Centre for Biomedical Research, University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust, Southampton, United Kingdom

Christopher H. Woelk

Contributed equally to this work with: Christopher H. Woelk, Peter H. Howarth

c.h.woelk@soton.ac.uk (CHH); p.h.howarth@soton.ac.uk (PHH)

Affiliation Clinical and Experimental Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, University of Southampton, Southampton, United Kingdom

Peter H. Howarth

Contributed equally to this work with: Christopher H. Woelk, Peter H. Howarth

c.h.woelk@soton.ac.uk (CHH); p.h.howarth@soton.ac.uk (PHH)

Affiliations Clinical and Experimental Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, University of Southampton, Southampton, United Kingdom, Southampton NIHR Respiratory Biomedical Research Unit, Southampton Centre for Biomedical Research, University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust, Southampton, United Kingdom

Competing Interests

Gene array analysis was funded by UCB Celtech as part of an academic collaboration with The University of Southampton. This commercial affiliation does not alter our adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization: PHH NJ SL PH NG. Data curation: AS. Formal analysis: AS CHW PHH. Funding acquisition: PHH CHW. Investigation: HR NJ AS. Methodology: AS CHW PHH. Software: AS. Supervision: CHW PHH. Validation: AS HR. Visualization: AS. Writing – original draft: AS CHW PHH. Writing – review & editing: AS HR NJ SL PH NG DED CHW PHH.