1 Department of General Internal Medicine and Clinical Laboratory Medicine, Akita University Graduate School of Medicine, 1-1-1, Hondo, Akita, 010-8543, Japan. ueki-shige@nifty.com.
2 Department of General Internal Medicine and Clinical Laboratory Medicine, Akita University Graduate School of Medicine, 1-1-1, Hondo, Akita, 010-8543, Japan.
3 Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Head & Neck Surgery, Akita University Hospital, Akita, Japan.
4 Department of Molecular Pathology and Tumor Pathology, Akita University Graduate School of Medicine, Akita, Japan.
5 Department of Pediatrics, University of Colorado School of Medicine, Denver, CO, USA.
6 Divisions of Allergy and Inflammation and Infectious Diseases, Department of Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.