About the Authors

Jean A. Hall

Jean.Hall@oregonstate.edu

Affiliation Department of Biomedical Sciences, College of Veterinary Medicine, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon, United States of America

Maha Yerramilli

Affiliation IDEXX Laboratories, Inc., One IDEXX Drive, Westbrook, Maine, United States of America

Edward Obare

Affiliation IDEXX Laboratories, Inc., One IDEXX Drive, Westbrook, Maine, United States of America

Jun Li

Affiliation IDEXX Laboratories, Inc., One IDEXX Drive, Westbrook, Maine, United States of America

Murthy Yerramilli

Affiliation IDEXX Laboratories, Inc., One IDEXX Drive, Westbrook, Maine, United States of America

Dennis E. Jewell

Affiliation Pet Nutrition Center, Hill's Pet Nutrition, Inc., Topeka, Kansas, United States of America

Competing Interests

I have read the journal's policy and the authors of this manuscript have the following competing interests: one of the authors (DEJ) has an affiliation to the commercial funders of this research, as an employee of Hill's Pet Nutrition, Inc. The work presented in this study was funded by and performed at the Pet Nutrition Center, Hill's Pet Nutrition, Inc., Topeka, KS (http://www.hillspet.com/ourcompany.html). The funding organization did not play a role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript and only provided financial support in the form of authors' salaries and/or research materials. This does not alter our adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials. Data is freely available upon request. Four of the authors (MY, EO, JL, and MY) have an affiliation to a commercial company, as employees of IDEXX Laboratories, Inc., that holds a patent on the ELISA methodology for measuring SDMA concentration. (http://www.idexx.com/view/xhtml/en_us/corporate/home.jsf). The patent no. is United States Patent No. US 481,690 B2; Date: July 9, 2013 Murthy et al., Methods for Detecting Symmetrical Dimethylarginine. Although these 4 authors have a commercial affiliation with IDEXX Laboratories, Inc., this commercial organization did not play a role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript and only provided financial support in the form of authors' salaries and/or research materials. This does not alter our adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials. Data is freely available upon request. Jean A. Hall has received research grant support from Hill’s Pet Nutrition, Inc. and IDEXX Laboratories, Inc. in the past. This does not alter our adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials. Data is freely available upon request.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization: JAH DEJ Murthy Yerramilli. Formal analysis: JAH DEJ. Funding acquisition: DEJ. Investigation: JAH Maha Yerramilli EO JL Murthy Yerramilli DEJ. Project administration: DEJ Murthy Yerramilli. Resources: DEJ Murthy Yerramilli. Validation: JAH DEJ Murthy Yerramilli. Visualization: JAH DEJ Murthy Yerramilli. Writing – original draft: JAH DEJ. Writing – review & editing: JAH DEJ Murthy Yerramilli.