About the Authors

Kazuhisa Watanabe

Affiliation Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center and Department of Pediatrics, Columbia University, New York, New York, United States of America

Elizabeth Watson

Contributed equally to this work with: Elizabeth Watson, Maria Laura Cremona

Affiliation Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center and Department of Pediatrics, Columbia University, New York, New York, United States of America

Maria Laura Cremona

Contributed equally to this work with: Elizabeth Watson, Maria Laura Cremona

Affiliation Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center and Department of Pediatrics, Columbia University, New York, New York, United States of America

Elizabeth J. Millings

Affiliation Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center and Department of Pediatrics, Columbia University, New York, New York, United States of America

Jay H. Lefkowitch

Affiliation Department of Pathology and Cell Biology, Columbia University, New York, New York, United States of America

Stuart G. Fischer

Affiliation Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center and Department of Pediatrics, Columbia University, New York, New York, United States of America

Charles A. LeDuc

Affiliation Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center and Department of Pediatrics, Columbia University, New York, New York, United States of America

Rudolph L. Leibel

rl232@columbia.edu

Affiliation Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center and Department of Pediatrics, Columbia University, New York, New York, United States of America

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. The work described in this submission is related to U.S. Nonprovisional Utility Patent Application 12/747,866 (filed June 6, 2010) “Methods for Identifying Compounds that Modulate LISCH-like Protein or C1ORF32 Protein Activity and Methods of Use”. 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: KW EW MLC CAL. Performed the experiments: KW EW MLC CAL. Analyzed the data: SGF CAL RLL. Wrote the paper: SGF RLL. Assisted with experiments and in drafting of manuscript: EM. Imaged and analyzed liver histology: JHL. Organized the data and designed the presentation: SGF. Oversaw the design and execution of experiments: RLL.