About the Authors

Melissa Piper Hunter

Contributed equally to this work with: Melissa Piper Hunter, Noura Ismail

Affiliation Division of Pulmonary, Allergy, Critical Care, Sleep Medicine, College of Medicine, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, United States of America

Noura Ismail

Contributed equally to this work with: Melissa Piper Hunter, Noura Ismail

Affiliations Division of Pulmonary, Allergy, Critical Care, Sleep Medicine, College of Medicine, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, United States of America, Molecular, Cellular, Developmental Biology Program, College of Biological Sciences, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, United States of America

Xiaoli Zhang

Affiliation Center for Biostatistics, College of Medicine, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, United States of America

Baltazar D. Aguda

Affiliation Mathematical Biosciences Institute, College of Medicine, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, United States of America

Eun Joo Lee

Affiliation College of Pharmacy, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, United States of America

Lianbo Yu

Affiliation Center for Biostatistics, College of Medicine, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, United States of America

Tao Xiao

Affiliation Biostatistics, College of Public Health, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, United States of America

Jeffrey Schafer

Affiliation Division of Pulmonary, Allergy, Critical Care, Sleep Medicine, College of Medicine, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, United States of America

Mei-Ling Ting Lee

Affiliation Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, United States of America

Thomas D. Schmittgen

Affiliation College of Pharmacy, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, United States of America

S. Patrick Nana-Sinkam

Affiliation Division of Pulmonary, Allergy, Critical Care, Sleep Medicine, College of Medicine, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, United States of America

David Jarjoura

Affiliation Center for Biostatistics, College of Medicine, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, United States of America

Clay B. Marsh

Clay.Marsh@osumc.edu

Affiliations Division of Pulmonary, Allergy, Critical Care, Sleep Medicine, College of Medicine, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, United States of America, Molecular, Cellular, Developmental Biology Program, College of Biological Sciences, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, United States of America

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Equally contributed to this paper through sample preparation, flow cytometry, data analysis and manuscript preparation: MPH NI. Provided assistance in microarray data analysis: PN. Performed the real-time PCR analysis: EL TDS. Performed all the computational analyses: BDA. Provided statistical analysis of the data sets: XZ LY ML DJ. Provided technical support and assisted in cell purifications: JS. Responsible for oversight of all aspects of this project: MPH CBM.