About the Authors

Taito Nishino

Affiliation Research Planning Department, Nissan Chemical Industries, Tokyo, Japan

Changshan Wang

Affiliations Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, Graduate School of Medicine, Chiba University, Chiba, Japan, Japan Science and Technology Agency, CREST, Tokyo, Japan

Makiko Mochizuki-Kashio

Affiliations Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, Graduate School of Medicine, Chiba University, Chiba, Japan, Japan Science and Technology Agency, CREST, Tokyo, Japan

Mitsujiro Osawa

Affiliations Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, Graduate School of Medicine, Chiba University, Chiba, Japan, Japan Science and Technology Agency, CREST, Tokyo, Japan

Hiromitsu Nakauchi

Affiliations Division of Stem Cell Therapy, Center for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, Institute of Medical Science, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan, ERATO, Tokyo, Japan

Atsushi Iwama

aiwama@faculty.chiba-u.jp

Affiliations Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, Graduate School of Medicine, Chiba University, Chiba, Japan, Japan Science and Technology Agency, CREST, Tokyo, Japan

Competing Interests

Taito Nishino is an employee of Nissan Chemical Industries, LTD. There is a pending patent ("The Method to Expand Hematopoietic Stem cells" Japanese Patent Application No. 2010-188594). There are no products in development or marketed products to declare. 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: TN AI. Performed the experiments: TN CW KK MO AI. Analyzed the data: TN CW KK MO AI. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: TN HN AI. Wrote the paper: TN HN AI.