About the Authors

Kazufumi Obata

Affiliations Department of Otolaryngology, Sapporo Medical University School of Medicine, Sapporo, Japan, Department of Pathology, Sapporo Medical University School of Medicine, Sapporo, Japan

Takashi Kojima

ktakashi@sapmed.ac.jp

Affiliations Department of Pathology, Sapporo Medical University School of Medicine, Sapporo, Japan, Department of Cell Science, Research Institute of Frontier Medicine, Sapporo Medical University School of Medicine, Sapporo, Japan

Tomoyuki Masaki

Affiliation Department of Otolaryngology, Sapporo Medical University School of Medicine, Sapporo, Japan

Tamaki Okabayashi

Affiliation Research Institute for Microbial Diseases, Osaka University, Suita, Japan

Shinichi Yokota

Affiliation Department of Microbiology, Sapporo Medical University School of Medicine, Sapporo, Japan

Satoshi Hirakawa

Affiliation Department of Pediatrics, Sapporo Medical University School of Medicine, Sapporo, Japan

Kazuaki Nomura

Affiliations Department of Otolaryngology, Sapporo Medical University School of Medicine, Sapporo, Japan, Department of Pathology, Sapporo Medical University School of Medicine, Sapporo, Japan

Akira Takasawa

Affiliation Department of Pathology, Sapporo Medical University School of Medicine, Sapporo, Japan

Masaki Murata

Affiliation Department of Pathology, Sapporo Medical University School of Medicine, Sapporo, Japan

Satoshi Tanaka

Affiliation Department of Pathology, Sapporo Medical University School of Medicine, Sapporo, Japan

Jun Fuchimoto

Affiliation Department of Pathology, Sapporo Medical University School of Medicine, Sapporo, Japan

Nobuhiro Fujii

Affiliation Department of Microbiology, Sapporo Medical University School of Medicine, Sapporo, Japan

Hiroyuki Tsutsumi

Affiliation Department of Pediatrics, Sapporo Medical University School of Medicine, Sapporo, Japan

Tetsuo Himi

Affiliation Department of Otolaryngology, Sapporo Medical University School of Medicine, Sapporo, Japan

Norimasa Sawada

Affiliation Department of Pathology, Sapporo Medical University School of Medicine, Sapporo, Japan

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: KO TK NF TH HT NS. Performed the experiments: KO TK SH KN JF. Analyzed the data: KO AT MM ST. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: TM TO SY. Wrote the paper: KO.