About the Authors

Abdu Adem

Affiliation Departments of Pharmacology, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, UAE University, Al Ain, United Arab Emirates

Mahmoud Al Haj

Affiliations Departments of Pharmacology, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, UAE University, Al Ain, United Arab Emirates, Department of Pharmaceutical Biosciences, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden

Sheela Benedict

Affiliation Internal Medicine, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, UAE University, Al Ain, United Arab Emirates

Javed Yasin

Affiliation Internal Medicine, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, UAE University, Al Ain, United Arab Emirates

Nicolas Nagelkerke

Affiliation Community Medicine, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, UAE University, Al Ain, United Arab Emirates

Fred Nyberg

Affiliation Department of Pharmaceutical Biosciences, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden

Tim G. Yandle

Affiliation Department of Medicine, University of Otago - Christchurch, Christchurch Hospital, Christchurch, New Zealand

Chris M. Frampton

Affiliation Department of Medicine, University of Otago - Christchurch, Christchurch Hospital, Christchurch, New Zealand

Lynley K. Lewis

Affiliation Department of Medicine, University of Otago - Christchurch, Christchurch Hospital, Christchurch, New Zealand

M. Gary Nicholls

Affiliation Department of Medicine, University of Otago - Christchurch, Christchurch Hospital, Christchurch, New Zealand

Elsadig Kazzam

kazzam@uaeu.ac.ae

Affiliation Internal Medicine, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, UAE University, Al Ain, United Arab Emirates

Competing Interests

Merck (United States of America) provided the gift of losartan for this study. There are no further patents, products in development or marketed products to declare. This does not alter the authors' adherence to all the PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials, as detailed online in the guide to authors.

Author Contributions

Contributed significantly, read and approved the manuscript: AA MH SB JY NN FN TY CF LKL MGN EK. Conceived and designed the experiments: TY MGN AA EK MH. Performed the experiments: TY LKL JY SB. Analyzed the data: CF NN TY LKL. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: AA MH EK MGN TY. Wrote the paper: MH AA MGN EK TY.