About the Authors

Peyvand Amini

Affiliation Division of Medicine, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada

Danny Wadden

Affiliation Division of Medicine, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada

Farrell Cahill

Affiliation Division of Medicine, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada

Edward Randell

Affiliation Discipline of Laboratory Medicine, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada

Sudesh Vasdev

Affiliation Division of Medicine, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada

Xihua Chen

Affiliation Division of BioMedical Sciences, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada

Wayne Gulliver

Affiliation Division of Medicine, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada

Weizhen Zhang

Affiliation Department of Physiology and Pathophysiology, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, People’s Republic of China

Hongwei Zhang

Affiliation Division of Medicine, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada

Yanqing Yi

Affiliation Division of Medicine, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada

Guang Sun

gsun@mun.ca

Affiliation Division of Medicine, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: GS. Performed the experiments: PA FC DW HZ GS WG. Analyzed the data: PA YY GS FC. Wrote the paper: PA GS. Revised the manuscript: GS ER SV XC WZ DW FC YY.