About the Authors

Ming-Sheng Teng

Affiliations Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences, Department of Physiology, College of Medicine, Taipei Medical University, Taipei, Taiwan, Department of Research, Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital, Buddhist Tzu Chi Medical Foundation, Taipei, Taiwan

Lung-An Hsu

Affiliation The First Cardiovascular Division, Department of Internal Medicine, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital and Chang Gung University College of Medicine, Taoyuan, Taiwan

Semon Wu

Affiliations Department of Research, Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital, Buddhist Tzu Chi Medical Foundation, Taipei, Taiwan, Department of Life Science, Chinese Culture University, Taipei, Taiwan

Yu-Chen Sun

Affiliation Department of Laboratory Medicine, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, Taoyuan, Taiwan

Shu-Hui Juan

yulinkotw@yahoo.com.tw (YLK); juansh@tmu.edu.tw (SHJ)

Affiliation Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences, Department of Physiology, College of Medicine, Taipei Medical University, Taipei, Taiwan

Yu-Lin Ko

yulinkotw@yahoo.com.tw (YLK); juansh@tmu.edu.tw (SHJ)

Affiliations The Division of Cardiology, Department of Internal Medicine and Cardiovascular Medical Center, Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital, Buddhist Tzu Chi Medical Foundation, Taipei, Taiwan, School of Medicine, Tzu Chi University, Hualien, Taiwan

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: YLK SHJ. Performed the experiments: MST YCS. Analyzed the data: MST LAH. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: SW. Wrote the paper: YLK SHJ MST.