About the Authors

Robert M. Valente

Affiliation Arthritis Center of Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska, United States of America

Erica Ehlers

Affiliation School of Biological Sciences, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska, United States of America

Dongsheng Xu

Current address: Tongji University, Shanghai Tenth People's Hospital, Shanghai, People's Republic of China

Affiliation School of Biological Sciences, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska, United States of America

Humera Ahmad

Affiliation School of Biological Sciences, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska, United States of America

Andrew Steadman

Affiliation School of Biological Sciences, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska, United States of America

Laura Blasnitz

Affiliation School of Biological Sciences, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska, United States of America

You Zhou

Affiliations Nebraska Center for Virology, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska, United States of America, Center for Biotechnology, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska, United States of America

Lisa Kastanek

Affiliation Arthritis Center of Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska, United States of America

Bin Meng

Affiliation Department of Pathology, Shandong University School of Medicine, Jinan, Shandong, People's Republic of China

Luwen Zhang

lzhang2@unlnotes.unl.edu

Affiliations School of Biological Sciences, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska, United States of America, Nebraska Center for Virology, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska, United States of America

Competing Interests

The corresponding author, Dr. Luwen Zhang, is a PLoS ONE Editorial Board member. This does not alter the authors’ adherence to all the PLoS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: LZ DX. Performed the experiments: RMV EE DX HA AS LB YZ LK BM. Analyzed the data: LZ RMV DX BM. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: RMV LK. Wrote the paper: LZ.