About the Authors

Simone Macrì

Contributed equally to this work with: Simone Macrì, Riccardo Sgarra

Affiliation Department of Biology, University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy

Riccardo Sgarra

Contributed equally to this work with: Simone Macrì, Riccardo Sgarra

Affiliation Department of Life Sciences, University of Trieste, Trieste, Italy

Gloria Ros

Affiliation Department of Life Sciences, University of Trieste, Trieste, Italy

Elisa Maurizio

Affiliation Department of Life Sciences, University of Trieste, Trieste, Italy

Salvina Zammitti

Current address: Eurospital S.p.A. Research and Development-Diagnostic Division, Trieste, Italy

Affiliation Department of Life Sciences, University of Trieste, Trieste, Italy

Ornella Milani

Current address: Department of Biochemistry, Nerviano Medical Sciences, Milano, Italy

Affiliation Department of Biology, University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy

Marco Onorati

Current address: Department of Pharmacological Sciences and Centre for Stem Cell Research University of Milano, Milano, Italy

Affiliation Department of Biology, University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy

Robert Vignali

manfiole@units.it (GM); rvignali@biologia.unipi.it (RV)

Affiliation Department of Biology, University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy

Guidalberto Manfioletti

manfiole@units.it (GM); rvignali@biologia.unipi.it (RV)

Affiliation Department of Life Sciences, University of Trieste, Trieste, Italy

Competing Interests

The authors state that all the work has been performed in the laboratories at the University of Trieste and the University of Pisa. The two authors (Salvina Zammitti and Ornella Milani) later moved to these companies. This does not alter the authors’ adherence to all the PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: SM RS RV GM. Performed the experiments: SM RS GR EM SZ OM MO. Analyzed the data: SM RS GR EM SZ OM MO RV GM. Wrote the paper: SM RS RV GM.