About the Authors

Masanori Yasuo

Affiliations Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine Division and Victoria Johnson Center for Obstructive Lung Diseases, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, United States of America, First Department of Internal Medicine, Shinshu University School of Medicine, Matsumoto, Japan

Shiro Mizuno

Affiliation Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine Division and Victoria Johnson Center for Obstructive Lung Diseases, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, United States of America

Jeremy Allegood

Affiliation Department of Biochemistry, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, United States of America

Donatas Kraskauskas

Affiliation Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine Division and Victoria Johnson Center for Obstructive Lung Diseases, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, United States of America

Harm J. Bogaard

Affiliation Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine Division and Victoria Johnson Center for Obstructive Lung Diseases, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, United States of America

Sarah Spiegel

Affiliation Department of Biochemistry, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, United States of America

Norbert F. Voelkel

nvoelkel@mcvh-vcu.edu

Affiliation Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine Division and Victoria Johnson Center for Obstructive Lung Diseases, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, United States of America

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: MY SM SS NFV. Performed the experiments: MY SM JA DK HJB. Analyzed the data: MY JA. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: MY SM JA DK. Wrote the paper: MY NFV.