About the Authors

Manabu Itoh

Affiliation Department of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, Faculty of Medicine, Saga University, Saga, Japan

Koichi Nakayama

Affiliation Biomedical Engineering Course Advanced Technology, Fusion Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Saga University, Saga, Japan

Ryo Noguchi

Affiliation Department of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, Faculty of Medicine, Saga University, Saga, Japan

Keiji Kamohara

Affiliation Department of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, Faculty of Medicine, Saga University, Saga, Japan

Kojirou Furukawa

Affiliation Department of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, Faculty of Medicine, Saga University, Saga, Japan

Kazuyoshi Uchihashi

Affiliation Department of Pathology & Microbiology, Faculty of Medicine, Saga University, Saga, Japan

Shuji Toda

Affiliation Department of Pathology & Microbiology, Faculty of Medicine, Saga University, Saga, Japan

Jun-ichi Oyama

Affiliation Department of Cardiovascular Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Saga University, Saga, Japan

Koichi Node

Affiliation Department of Cardiovascular Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Saga University, Saga, Japan

Shigeki Morita

moritash@cc.saga-u.ac.jp

Affiliation Department of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, Faculty of Medicine, Saga University, Saga, Japan

Competing Interests

Co-author K. Nakayama is a co-founder and shareholder of Cyfuse Biomedical KK. The other authors have declared that no competing interests exist. This does not alter the authors' adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: MI K. Nakayama KK KF SM. Performed the experiments: MI RN KU ST. Analyzed the data: JO K. Node. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: K. Nakayama. Wrote the paper: MI SM.