About the Authors

Hassina Baraki

Contributed equally to this work with: Hassina Baraki, Norman Zinne

baraki.hassina@mh-hannover.de

Affiliation Department of Cardio-Thoracic, Transplantation and Vascular Surgery, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany

Norman Zinne

Contributed equally to this work with: Hassina Baraki, Norman Zinne

Affiliation Department of Cardio-Thoracic, Transplantation and Vascular Surgery, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany

Dirk Wedekind

Affiliation Institute of Laboratory Animal Science, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany

Martin Meier

Affiliation Institute of Laboratory Animal Science, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany

André Bleich

Affiliation Institute of Laboratory Animal Science, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany

Silke Glage

Affiliation Institute of Laboratory Animal Science, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany

Hans-Juergen Hedrich

Affiliation Institute of Laboratory Animal Science, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany

Ingo Kutschka

Affiliation Department of Cardio-Thoracic, Transplantation and Vascular Surgery, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany

Axel Haverich

Affiliation Department of Cardio-Thoracic, Transplantation and Vascular Surgery, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: HB NZ DW IK AH. Performed the experiments: HB NZ DW IK. Analyzed the data: HB NZ DW MM AB SG HJH IK AH. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: HB NZ DW MM AB SG HJH IK AH. Wrote the paper: HB NZ DW MM AB IK AH.