About the Authors

Chun-Che Tseng

Contributed equally to this work with: Chun-Che Tseng, Bailing Jia

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Validation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, Department of Oncology Georgetown University, Washington DC, United States of America

Bailing Jia

Contributed equally to this work with: Chun-Che Tseng, Bailing Jia

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Validation, Visualization

Affiliations Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, Department of Oncology Georgetown University, Washington DC, United States of America, Department of Gastroenterology, Henan Provincial People’s Hospital, Zhengzhou, China

Robert Barndt

Roles Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Validation, Visualization

Affiliation Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, Department of Oncology Georgetown University, Washington DC, United States of America

Yayun Gu

Roles Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation

Affiliation Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, Department of Oncology Georgetown University, Washington DC, United States of America

Chien-Yu Chen

Roles Data curation, Investigation

Affiliations Department of Biochemistry National Defense Medical Center, Taipei, Taiwan, School of Medicine National Defense Medical Center, Taipei, Taiwan

I-Chu Tseng

Roles Data curation, Investigation

Current address: Del E. Webb Neuroscience, Aging & Stem Cell Research Center Sanford-Burnham-Prebys Medical Discovery Institute 10901 North Torrey Pines Road, La Jolla, California, United States of America

Affiliation Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, Department of Oncology Georgetown University, Washington DC, United States of America

Sheng-Fang Su

Roles Data curation, Investigation

Current address: Center of Biotechnology National Taiwan University, No1, Sec4, Roosevelt Rd, Taipei 10617, Taiwan

Affiliation Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, Department of Oncology Georgetown University, Washington DC, United States of America

Jehng-Kang Wang

Roles Funding acquisition, Investigation, Project administration, Supervision

Affiliation Department of Biochemistry National Defense Medical Center, Taipei, Taiwan

Michael D. Johnson

Roles Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Project administration, Resources, Supervision, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

lincy@georgetown.edu (CYL); johnsom@georgetown.edu (MDJ)

Affiliation Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, Department of Oncology Georgetown University, Washington DC, United States of America

Chen-Yong Lin

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Supervision, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

lincy@georgetown.edu (CYL); johnsom@georgetown.edu (MDJ)

Affiliation Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, Department of Oncology Georgetown University, Washington DC, United States of America

Competing Interests

The authors have read the journal's policy and the authors of this manuscript have the following competing interests: C.-Y.L is an inventor on US patents #6,077,938 (Title: Monoclonal antibody to an 80-kDa protease) and #6,677,377 (Title: Structure based discovery of inhibitors of matriptase for the cancer diagnosis and therapy by detection and inhibition of matriptase activity) and M.D.J and C.-Y.L are inventors on US patent #7,355,015 (Title: Matriptase, a serine protease and its applications). This does not alter the authors’ adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.