About the Authors

Fumiko Matsuoka

Contributed equally to this work with: Fumiko Matsuoka, Ichiro Takeuchi

Affiliation Department of Biotechnology, Graduate School of Engineering, Nagoya University, Nagoya, Aichi, Japan

Ichiro Takeuchi

Contributed equally to this work with: Fumiko Matsuoka, Ichiro Takeuchi

Affiliation Department of Engineering, Nagoya Institute of Technology, Nagoya, Aichi, Japan

Hideki Agata

Affiliation Tissue Engineering Research Group, Division of Molecular Therapy, The Institute of Medical Science The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

Hideaki Kagami

Affiliations Tissue Engineering Research Group, Division of Molecular Therapy, The Institute of Medical Science The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan, Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Matsumoto Dental University School of Dentistry, Shiojiri, Nagano, Japan

Hirofumi Shiono

Affiliation Nikon Corporation, Tokyo, Japan

Yasujiro Kiyota

Affiliation Nikon Corporation, Tokyo, Japan

Hiroyuki Honda

Affiliation Department of Biotechnology, Graduate School of Engineering, Nagoya University, Nagoya, Aichi, Japan

Ryuji Kato

kato-r@ps.nagoya-u.ac.jp

Affiliations Department of Biotechnology, Graduate School of Engineering, Nagoya University, Nagoya, Aichi, Japan, Department of Basic Medicinal Sciences, Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Nagoya University, Nagoya, Aichi, Japan

Competing Interests

We have the following interests. This study was supported in part by a grant-in-aid from Nikon Corporation. Hirofumi Shiono and Yasujiro Kiyota are employed by Nikon Instruments. Ryuji Kato is one of the main investigators of 12 patents (pending) related to basic technologies of “algorithms of cellular image processing. Hirofumi Shiono, is one of the inventors of the hardware we used in our research, “BioStaion CT” which is the automatic cell culture system, and a member of this collaborative project with Nagoya Univ. The BioStation CT and relating software are marketed products of Nikon Corporation. Although the system and the software were used in this study, the result of this research does not depend on the system and the software. He is one of the inventors of related 12 patents. Yasujiro Kiyota, is one of the inventors of the hardware we used in our research work. There are no further patents, products in development or marketed products to declare. This does not alter our adherence to all the PLoS ONE policies on sharing data and materials, as detailed online in the guide for authors.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: FM HK HA RK. Performed the experiments: FM. Analyzed the data: IT FM RK. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: HS YK HH RK. Wrote the paper: FM IT HK HA RK.