About the Authors

Xianbin Cai

Contributed equally to this work with: Xianbin Cai, Xi Hu

‡ These authors are co-first authors on this work.

Affiliation Department of Gastroenterology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Shantou University Medical College, Shantou, Guangdong 515031, China

Xi Hu

Contributed equally to this work with: Xianbin Cai, Xi Hu

‡ These authors are co-first authors on this work.

Affiliation Department of Gastroenterology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Shantou University Medical College, Shantou, Guangdong 515031, China

Xiaojun Tan

Affiliation Department of Internal Medicine, Chancheng District Central Hospital, Foshan, Guangdong 528031, China

Weijie Cheng

Affiliation Department of Gastroenterology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Shantou University Medical College, Shantou, Guangdong 515031, China

Qinjia Wang

Affiliation Department of Gastroenterology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Shantou University Medical College, Shantou, Guangdong 515031, China

Xiaofeng Chen

Affiliation Department of Gastroenterology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Shantou University Medical College, Shantou, Guangdong 515031, China

Yinghong Guan

Affiliation Department of Gastroenterology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Shantou University Medical College, Shantou, Guangdong 515031, China

Chong Chen

Affiliation Department of Gastroenterology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Shantou University Medical College, Shantou, Guangdong 515031, China

Xubin Jing

xbjing@stu.edu.cn

Affiliation Department of Gastroenterology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Shantou University Medical College, Shantou, Guangdong 515031, China

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: XBJ XBC XH. Performed the experiments: XBC XH XJT WJC QJW. Analyzed the data: YHG XFC. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: XBJ. Wrote the paper: XBC XH CC.