About the Authors

Raffaele Brogna

Roles Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Writing – original draft

Affiliations Unit for Reproductive Medicine—Clinic for Horses, University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover, Hannover, Germany, Biostabilization laboratory—Lower Saxony Centre for Biomedical Engineering, Implant Research and Development, University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover, Hannover, Germany

Harriëtte Oldenhof

Roles Supervision, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Unit for Reproductive Medicine—Clinic for Horses, University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover, Hannover, Germany

Harald Sieme

Roles Funding acquisition, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Unit for Reproductive Medicine—Clinic for Horses, University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover, Hannover, Germany

Constança Figueiredo

Roles Resources

Affiliation Institute for Transfusion Medicine, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany

Tobias Kerrinnes

Roles Funding acquisition

Affiliation Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research, Braunschweig, Germany

Willem F. Wolkers

Roles Funding acquisition, Supervision, Writing – review & editing

willem.wolkers@tiho-hannover.de

Affiliations Unit for Reproductive Medicine—Clinic for Horses, University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover, Hannover, Germany, Biostabilization laboratory—Lower Saxony Centre for Biomedical Engineering, Implant Research and Development, University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover, Hannover, Germany

Competing Interests

The work described in this study was financially supported via funds provided by the German Center for Infection Research (DZIF) and the Maschmeyer Group. The Maschmeyer group is a commercial funder. This does not alter our adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials. This funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The initial phase of this work was performed at the Institute of Multiphase Processes at the Leibniz University Hannover, funded via the German Research Foundation (DFG) REBIRTH-excellence cluster.