About the Authors

Karin Fredriksson

Affiliation Cardiovascular and Pulmonary Branch, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America

Jill A. Fielhaber

Contributed equally to this work with: Jill A. Fielhaber, Jonathan K. Lam

Affiliation Critical Care and Respiratory Divisions and Meakins-Christie Laboratories, Department of Medicine, McGill University Health Centre, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Jonathan K. Lam

Contributed equally to this work with: Jill A. Fielhaber, Jonathan K. Lam

Affiliation Cardiovascular and Pulmonary Branch, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America

Xianglan Yao

Affiliation Cardiovascular and Pulmonary Branch, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America

Katharine S. Meyer

Affiliation Cardiovascular and Pulmonary Branch, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America

Karen J. Keeran

Affiliation Laboratory of Animal Medicine and Surgery, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America

Gayle J. Zywicke

Affiliation Laboratory of Animal Medicine and Surgery, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America

Xuan Qu

Affiliation Pathology Core Facility, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America

Zu-Xi Yu

Affiliation Pathology Core Facility, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America

Joel Moss

Affiliation Cardiovascular and Pulmonary Branch, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America

Arnold S. Kristof

Affiliation Critical Care and Respiratory Divisions and Meakins-Christie Laboratories, Department of Medicine, McGill University Health Centre, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Stewart J. Levine

levines@nhlbi.nih.gov

Affiliation Cardiovascular and Pulmonary Branch, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America

Competing Interests

JM has received royalties from a patent (United States Provisional Patent Application No. 60/528,340 filed 09 Dec 2003) licensed from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) that is related to the topic of this manuscript. ASK has received research support from the LAM Foundation, the Canadian Institutes of Health, and the NIH (R01 CA125436). ASK also has received funding through a NIH Intramural Research Program Contract. ASK has a patent on a topic related to this manuscript (United States Provisional Patent Application No. 60/528,340 filed 09 Dec 2003). SJL has two patents that are unrelated to the topic of this manuscript (United States Patent 7,135,303, Filed February 28, 2001 and United States Patent 7,655,752 B2, Filed March 24, 2006). These competing interests do not alter the authors' adherence to all the PLoS ONE policies on sharing data and materials, as detailed online in the PLoS One guide for authors.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: KF JAF JKL XY JM ASK SJL. Performed the experiments: KF JAF JKL KSM KJK GJZ XQ. Analyzed the data: KF JAF JKL XY ZY JM ASK SJL. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: KF JAF JKL XY KJK GJZ XQ ZY ASK SJL. Wrote the paper: KF JKL ASK SJL.