About the Authors

Jiajia Gao

Contributed equally to this work with: Jiajia Gao, Xueping Qiu

Current address: Laboratory of Clinical Immunology, Wuhan No. 1 Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST), Wuhan, Hubei, PR China

Affiliation Center for Gene Diagnosis, Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University, Wuhan, China

Xueping Qiu

Contributed equally to this work with: Jiajia Gao, Xueping Qiu

Affiliation Center for Gene Diagnosis, Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University, Wuhan, China

Xuebin Wang

Affiliation Center for Gene Diagnosis, Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University, Wuhan, China

Chunyan Peng

Affiliation Center for Gene Diagnosis, Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University, Wuhan, China

Fang Zheng

zhengfang@whu.edu.cn

Affiliation Center for Gene Diagnosis, Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University, Wuhan, China

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: FZ. Performed the experiments: JJG XPQ. Analyzed the data: JJG XPQ XBW. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: XBW CYP. Wrote the paper: JJG FZ. Undertook BSP, genotyping and qPCR: JJG. Undertook LC-ESI-MS/MS: XPQ. Collected samples and extracted DNA and RNA: JJG XPQ. Drafted the manuscript: JJG FZ. Helped with genotyping and contributed to the acquisition of clinical data: XBW CYP. Designed the project: FZ. Read and approved the final manuscript: JJG XPQ XBW CYP FZ.