About the Authors

Salvatore Sotgia

salvatore.sotgia@gmail.com

Affiliation Department of Biomedical Sciences, University of Sassari, Sassari, Italy

Angelo Zinellu

Affiliation Department of Biomedical Sciences, University of Sassari, Sassari, Italy

Arduino A. Mangoni

Affiliation Department of Clinical Pharmacology, School of Medicine, Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia

Gianfranco Pintus

Affiliation Department of Biomedical Sciences, University of Sassari, Sassari, Italy

John Attia

Affiliation Level 3 Hunter Medical Research Institute, School of Medicine & Public Health, University of Newcastle, Newcastle, NSW, Australia

Ciriaco Carru

Affiliation Department of Biomedical Sciences, University of Sassari, Sassari, Italy

Mark McEvoy

Affiliation Centre for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of Newcastle, Newcastle, NSW, Australia

Competing Interests

Co-author Gianfranco Pintus is a PLOS ONE Editorial Board member. This does not alter the authors' adherence to all the PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: SS AZ AAM CC. Performed the experiments: SS AZ CC MM JA. Analyzed the data: SS AZ AAM CC GP JA MM. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: CC GP. Wrote the paper: SS.