About the Authors

Ling Lu

Affiliations Division of Rheumatology, Department of Medicine, Keck School of Medicine at University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, United States of America, Department of Liver Transplantation, First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China

Xiaohui Zhou

Affiliations Division of Rheumatology, Department of Medicine, Keck School of Medicine at University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, United States of America, Immune Tolerance Center Shanghai East Hospital, Tonji University of Medicine, Shanghai, China

Julie Wang

Affiliation Division of Rheumatology, Department of Medicine, Keck School of Medicine at University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, United States of America

Song Guo Zheng

dhorwitz@usc.edu (DAH); szheng@usc.edu (SGZ)

Affiliation Division of Rheumatology, Department of Medicine, Keck School of Medicine at University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, United States of America

David A. Horwitz

dhorwitz@usc.edu (DAH); szheng@usc.edu (SGZ)

Affiliation Division of Rheumatology, Department of Medicine, Keck School of Medicine at University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, United States of America

Competing Interests

The authors have read the journal's policy and have the following conflicts: Dr. Horwitz is the Founder of ExCell Therapeutics and a consultant for Becton Dickinson Biosciences.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: DAH SGZ. Performed the experiments: LL XZ JW. Analyzed the data: LL XZ JW SGZ DAH. Wrote the paper: DAH.