About the Authors

Haiwei Luo

Affiliation Department of Biological Sciences, University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina, United States of America

Jian Shi

Affiliation Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina, United States of America

William Arndt

Affiliation Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina, United States of America

Jijun Tang

Affiliation Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina, United States of America

Robert Friedman

bobf@biol.sc.edu

Affiliation Department of Biological Sciences, University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina, United States of America

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: HL RF. Performed the experiments: HL JS WA JT. Analyzed the data: HL JT RF. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: HL JS WA JT RF. Wrote the paper: HL JT RF.