About the Authors

Shervin Assassi

Contributed equally to this work with: Shervin Assassi, Astrud L. Leyva

shervin.assassi@uth.tmc.edu

Affiliation Department of Medicine, Division of Rheumatology, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, United States of America

Astrud L. Leyva

Contributed equally to this work with: Shervin Assassi, Astrud L. Leyva

Affiliation Department of Medicine, University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, Galveston, Texas, United States of America

Maureen D. Mayes

Affiliation Department of Medicine, Division of Rheumatology, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, United States of America

Roozbeh Sharif

Affiliations Department of Medicine, Division of Rheumatology, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, United States of America, Department of Medicine, University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, Galveston, Texas, United States of America

Deepthi K. Nair

Affiliation Department of Medicine, Division of Rheumatology, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, United States of America

Michael Fischbach

Affiliation Department of Medicine, Division of Rheumatology, University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, San Antonio, Texas, United States of America

Ngan Nguyen

Affiliation Department of Medicine, Division of Rheumatology, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, United States of America

John D. Reveille

Affiliation Department of Medicine, Division of Rheumatology, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, United States of America

Emilio B. Gonzalez

Affiliation Department of Medicine, University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, Galveston, Texas, United States of America

Terry A. McNearney

Current address: Eli Lilly and Company, Indianapolis, Indiana, United States of America

Affiliation Department of Medicine, University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, Galveston, Texas, United States of America

for the GENISOS Study Group

Competing Interests

The authors wish to declare the following competing interest: Dr. Terry A. McNearney is an employee of Eli Lilly and Company. There are no patents, 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, as detailed online in the guide for authors. Dr. McNearney was the former principal investigator of GENISOS study at University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. Eli Lilly and Company did not have any role in study design, data collection, analysis of the data, and writing the manuscript. Other authors have nothing to declare.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: SA ALL MDM RS JDR EBG TAM. Performed the experiments: SA ALL MDM RS DKN MF NN JDR EBG TAM. Analyzed the data: SA ALL MDM RS JDR EBG TAM. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: SA ALL MDM RS DKN MF NN JDR EBG TAM. Wrote the paper: SA ALL MDM RS JDR EBG TAM.