About the Authors

Qingzhong Xiao

Contributed equally to this work with: Qingzhong Xiao, Stefan Kiechl

Affiliation Cardiovascular Division, King's College London, University of London, London, United Kingdom

Stefan Kiechl

Contributed equally to this work with: Qingzhong Xiao, Stefan Kiechl

Affiliation Department of Neurology, Medical University Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria

Seema Patel

Affiliation Cardiovascular Division, King's College London, University of London, London, United Kingdom

Friedrich Oberhollenzer

Affiliation Department of Internal Medicine, Hospital of Bruneck, Bruneck, Italy

Siegfried Weger

Affiliation Department of Neurology, Medical University Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria

Agnes Mayr

Affiliation Department of Laboratory Medicine, Hospital of Bruneck, Bruneck, Italy

Bernhard Metzler

Affiliation Department of Internal Medicine, Medical University Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria

Markus Reindl

Affiliation Department of Neurology, Medical University Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria

Yanhua Hu

Affiliation Cardiovascular Division, King's College London, University of London, London, United Kingdom

Johann Willeit

Affiliation Department of Neurology, Medical University Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria

Qingbo Xu

To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: qingbo.xu@kcl.ac.uk

Affiliation Cardiovascular Division, King's College London, University of London, London, United Kingdom

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: QX JW QX. Performed the experiments: QX SP FO SW AM YH. Analyzed the data: SK QX JW QX. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: SK QX BM MR QX. Wrote the paper: SK QX YH JW QX. Other: Wrote the first draft of the paper: QX.