About the Authors

Ying Wang

Contributed equally to this work with: Ying Wang, Thomas M. Gilbreath III

Current address: Department of Pathogen Biology, College of Basic Medical Sciences, Third Military Medical University, Chongqing, China

Affiliation Biology Department, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, New Mexico, United States of America

Thomas M. Gilbreath III

Contributed equally to this work with: Ying Wang, Thomas M. Gilbreath III

Affiliation Program in Public Health, University of California Irvine, Irvine, California, United States of America

Phanidhar Kukutla

Affiliation Biology Department, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, New Mexico, United States of America

Guiyun Yan

Affiliation Program in Public Health, University of California Irvine, Irvine, California, United States of America

Jiannong Xu

jxu@nmsu.edu

Affiliation Biology Department, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, New Mexico, United States of America

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: JX TG YW GY. Performed the experiments: TG YW PK JX. Analyzed the data: JX. Wrote the paper: JX TG.