About the Authors

Lei Liu

Affiliation Department of Physiology, Xuzhou Medical College, Xuzhou, Jiangsu, People’s Republic of China

Jie Cui

Affiliation Department of Physiology, Xuzhou Medical College, Xuzhou, Jiangsu, People’s Republic of China

Cheng-Jie Song

Affiliation Department of Physiology, Xuzhou Medical College, Xuzhou, Jiangsu, People’s Republic of China

Jin-Song Bian

Affiliation Department of Pharmacology, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore

Anna Sparatore

Affiliation Dipartimento di Scienze Farmaceutiche “Pietro Pratesi,” Università degli Studi di Milano, Milan, Italy

Piero Del Soldato

Affiliation CTG Pharma, Milan, Italy

Xin-Yu Wang

yancd55@163.com (CDY); wangxy926@yahoo.com (XYW)

Affiliation Department of Endocrinology, Shenzhen Second People's Hospital, Guangdong Province, People’s Republic of China

Chang-Dong Yan

yancd55@163.com (CDY); wangxy926@yahoo.com (XYW)

Affiliation Department of Physiology, Xuzhou Medical College, Xuzhou, Jiangsu, People’s Republic of China

Competing Interests

Dr. Piero Del Soldato is a shareholder and employee of CTG Pharma, Milan, Italy. This company has patent on ACS14 used in this study. There are no further patents, products in development or marketed products to declare. This does not alter the authors' adherence to all the PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials, as detailed online in the guide for authors.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: JSB XYW CDY. Performed the experiments: LL JC CJS. Analyzed the data: LL CDY. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: AS PDS. Wrote the paper: LL JSB CDY.