About the Authors

Yuji Nakada

Contributed equally to this work with: Yuji Nakada, Thomas G. Stewart

Affiliation Department of Pathology and Simmons Cancer Center, UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas, United States of America

Thomas G. Stewart

Contributed equally to this work with: Yuji Nakada, Thomas G. Stewart

Affiliation Departments of Medicine and Genetics, The Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center and University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States of America

Christopher G. Peña

Affiliation Department of Pathology and Simmons Cancer Center, UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas, United States of America

Song Zhang

Affiliation Department of Clinical Sciences, UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas, United States of America

Ni Zhao

Affiliation Departments of Medicine and Genetics, The Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center and University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States of America

Nabeel Bardeesy

Affiliation Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center and Harvard Medical School, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America

Norman E. Sharpless

Affiliation Departments of Medicine and Genetics, The Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center and University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States of America

Kwok-Kin Wong

Affiliation Department of Medicine, Harvard of Medical School and Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America

D. Neil Hayes

hayes@med.unc.edu (DNH); diego.castrillon@utsouthwestern.edu (DHC)

Affiliation Departments of Medicine and Genetics, The Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center and University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States of America

Diego H. Castrillon

hayes@med.unc.edu (DNH); diego.castrillon@utsouthwestern.edu (DHC)

Affiliation Department of Pathology and Simmons Cancer Center, UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas, United States of America

Competing Interests

DC, KW, NB and NS are inventors on an application (United States patent pending) of DNA-based methods to employ LKB1 status for diagnostic and prognostic clinical tests. This invention does not utilize the methods or antibody described in this manuscript. These investigators are paid consultants of Molecular MD (Portland, OR), which has a license agreement with these authors' respective academic institutions. NH is an inventor on an application (United States patent pending) for the use of LKB1 as a prognostic factor – this invention also does not utilize the methods or antibody described in this manuscript.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: YN TS CP SZ NB NS KW NH DC. Performed the experiments: YN TS CP SZ. Analyzed the data: YN TS CP SZ NB NS KW NH DC NZ. Wrote the paper: YN TS NH DC.