About the Authors

Chun-Che Tseng

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Methodology, Validation, Writing – original draft

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

Bailing Jia

Roles Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation

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

Robert B. Barndt

Roles Investigation, Methodology, Writing – original draft

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

Yang-Hong Dai

Roles Formal analysis

Affiliation Department of Radiation Oncology, Tri-Service General Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan

Yu Hsin Chen

Roles Formal analysis, Investigation

Affiliation School of Medicine, National Defense Medical Center, Taipei, Taiwan

Po-Wen A. Du

Roles Formal analysis, Investigation

Affiliations Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, Department of Oncology, Georgetown University, Washington, DC, United States of America, National Defense Medical Center, Department of Biochemistry, Taipei, Taiwan

Jehng-Kang Wang

Roles Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Writing – original draft

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

Hung-Jen Tang

Roles Funding acquisition

8409d1@gmail.com (HJT); lincy@georgetown.edu (CYL); johnsom@georgetown.edu (MDJ)

Affiliation Section of Infectious Diseases, Chi-Mei Medical Center, Tainan, Taiwan

Chen-Yong Lin

Roles Conceptualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

8409d1@gmail.com (HJT); lincy@georgetown.edu (CYL); johnsom@georgetown.edu (MDJ)

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

Michael D. Johnson

Roles Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Supervision, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

8409d1@gmail.com (HJT); 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

CYL 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 MDJ and CYL are inventors on US patent #7,355,015 (Title: Matriptase, a serine protease and its applications). This does not alter our adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.