About the Authors

Jeff Holderness

Affiliation Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases, Montana State University, Bozeman, Montana, United States of America

Igor A. Schepetkin

Affiliation Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases, Montana State University, Bozeman, Montana, United States of America

Brett Freedman

Affiliation Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases, Montana State University, Bozeman, Montana, United States of America

Liliya N. Kirpotina

Affiliation Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases, Montana State University, Bozeman, Montana, United States of America

Mark T. Quinn

Affiliation Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases, Montana State University, Bozeman, Montana, United States of America

Jodi F. Hedges

Affiliation Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases, Montana State University, Bozeman, Montana, United States of America

Mark A. Jutila

uvsmj@montana.edu

Affiliation Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases, Montana State University, Bozeman, Montana, United States of America

Competing Interests

M.A.J. holds shares in LigoCyte Pharmaceuticals, which together with Montana State University, held a National Institutes of Health contract that partially funded this work. LigoCyte Pharmaceuticals had no monetary or intellectual input toward the research nor the interpretation of this report. A provisional patent application of the therapeutic use of the Acai-derived polysaccharides has been submitted. Acai extract is contained in many commercial products. This does not alter the authors' adherence to all the PLoS ONE policies on sharing data and materials. All other authors have no financial conflict of interest.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: JH IAS BF MTQ JFH MAJ. Performed the experiments: JH BF LNK. Analyzed the data: JH IAS BF. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: MTQ MAJ. Wrote the paper: JH IAS.