About the Authors

Alexander Swidsinski

Contributed equally to this work with: Alexander Swidsinski, Hans Verstraelen

Affiliation Charité Hospital, CCM, Laboratory for Molecular Genetics, Polymicrobial Infections and Bacterial Biofilms and Department of Medicine, Gastroenterology, Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany

Hans Verstraelen

Contributed equally to this work with: Alexander Swidsinski, Hans Verstraelen

hans.verstraelen@ugent.be

Affiliation Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium

Vera Loening-Baucke

Affiliation Charité Hospital, CCM, Laboratory for Molecular Genetics, Polymicrobial Infections and Bacterial Biofilms and Department of Medicine, Gastroenterology, Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany

Sonja Swidsinski

Affiliation Department of Microbiology, Labor Berlin, Neukölln, Berlin, Germany

Werner Mendling

Affiliation German Centre for Infections in Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Wuppertal, Germany

Zaher Halwani

Affiliation DRK Kliniken Berlin Westend, Klinik für Gynäkologie und Geburtshilfe, Berlin, Germany

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: AS HV VLB SS WM ZH. Performed the experiments: AS VLB WM ZH. Analyzed the data: HV AS. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: HV AS. Wrote the paper: HV AS. Provided important intellectual content: WM SS VLB ZH.