About the Authors

Guiling Sun

Affiliation Department of Biology, East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina, United States of America

C. Neal Stewart Jr.

Affiliations Department of Plant Sciences, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee, United States of America, BioEnergy Science Center, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, United States of America

Peng Xiao

Affiliation Department of Mathematics, East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina, United States of America

Baohong Zhang

zhangb@ecu.edu

Affiliation Department of Biology, East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina, United States of America

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: GS BZ. Performed the experiments: GS BZ. Analyzed the data: GS CNS PX BZ. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: GS CNS PX BZ. Wrote the paper: GS CNS PX BZ.