About the Authors

Allison L. Speer

Contributed equally to this work with: Allison L. Speer, Denise Al Alam

Affiliation Children's Hospital Los Angeles, Department of Pediatric Surgery/Developmental Biology and Regenerative Medicine, Los Angeles, California, United States of America

Denise Al Alam

Contributed equally to this work with: Allison L. Speer, Denise Al Alam

Affiliation Children's Hospital Los Angeles, Department of Pediatric Surgery/Developmental Biology and Regenerative Medicine, Los Angeles, California, United States of America

Frederic G. Sala

Affiliation Children's Hospital Los Angeles, Department of Pediatric Surgery/Developmental Biology and Regenerative Medicine, Los Angeles, California, United States of America

Henri R. Ford

Affiliation Children's Hospital Los Angeles, Department of Pediatric Surgery/Developmental Biology and Regenerative Medicine, Los Angeles, California, United States of America

Saverio Bellusci

Affiliations Children's Hospital Los Angeles, Department of Pediatric Surgery/Developmental Biology and Regenerative Medicine, Los Angeles, California, United States of America, University of Giessen Lung Center, Department of Internal Medicine II, Giessen, Germany

Tracy C. Grikscheit

tgrikscheit@chla.usc.edu

Affiliation Children's Hospital Los Angeles, Department of Pediatric Surgery/Developmental Biology and Regenerative Medicine, Los Angeles, California, United States of America

Competing Interests

The authors have read the journal's policy and have the following conflict: SB currently serves as an editor of PLOS ONE. The authors would like to confirm that this does not alter the authors' adherence to all the PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: ALS FGS DA HRF SB TG. Performed the experiments: ALS FGS DA. Analyzed the data: ALS FGS DA HRF SB TG. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: ALS HRF SB TG. Wrote the paper: ALS FGS DA HRF SB TG.