Statistical Analysis

To identify the difference of clinical score in two groups, the Mann-Whitney U test was used. As to the evaluation of statistical significance about real-time reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), Western blot, MPO and flow cytometry data for animal experiment, an unpaired, two-tailed Student's t-test was adopted, while in vitro experiments, a one-way ANOVA was taken to analyze the statistical significance of relative experiments including RT-PCR, Western blot, and the ELISA data. The P-value less than 0.05 was considered to be statistically significant. To guarantee the reproducibility of all experiments, each one was repeated, and datum from representative experiments are presented as mean±standard deviation (SD).