About the Authors

Meghan E. Wilson

Affiliation Department of Pathology, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States of America

Imene Boumaza

Affiliation Department of Pathology, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States of America

David Lacomis

Affiliation Department of Neurology, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States of America

Robert Bowser

bowserrp@upmc.edu

Affiliation Department of Pathology, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States of America

Competing Interests

The authors have read the journal's policy and have the following conflicts: Robert Bowser is co-founder of Knopp Neurosciences, a biotechnology company devoted to the development of therapies for ALS and other neurologic diseases. 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: RB MEW DL. Performed the experiments: IB MEW. Analyzed the data: MEW RB. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: DL. Wrote the paper: MEW RB. Enrolled patients and collected biofluid samples: DL. Edited and revised manuscript: DL IB.