About the Authors

Jörg Waldhaus

Current address: Departments of Otolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery and Molecular & Cellular Physiology, School of Medicine, Stanford University, Stanford, California, United States of America

Affiliation Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery, Hearing Research Center Tübingen, University of Tübingen Medical Center, Tübingen, Germany

Jelka Cimerman

Current address: Departments of Otolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery and Molecular & Cellular Physiology, School of Medicine, Stanford University, Stanford, California, United States of America

Affiliation Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery, Hearing Research Center Tübingen, University of Tübingen Medical Center, Tübingen, Germany

Henning Gohlke

Affiliation SEQUENOM GmbH, Hamburg, Germany

Mathias Ehrich

Affiliation SEQUENOM Inc., San Diego, California, United States of America

Marcus Müller

Affiliation Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery, Hearing Research Center Tübingen, University of Tübingen Medical Center, Tübingen, Germany

Hubert Löwenheim

hubert.loewenheim@uni-tuebingen.de

Affiliation Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery, Hearing Research Center Tübingen, University of Tübingen Medical Center, Tübingen, Germany

Competing Interests

HG and ME are employees of SEQUENOM GmbH and SEQUENOM, Inc., respectively. All other authors have declared that no competing interests exist. This does not alter our adherence to all the PLoS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: JW HL. Performed the experiments: JW JC HG. Analyzed the data: JW JC HG MM ME. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: MM. Wrote the paper: JW HL.