About the Authors

Lorie Benning

lbenning@jhu.edu

Affiliation Department of Epidemiology, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America

Elizabeth T. Golub

Affiliation Department of Epidemiology, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America

Kathryn Anastos

Affiliation Departments of Medicine and Epidemiology & Population Health, Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Montefiore Medical Center, Bronx, New York, United States of America

Audrey L. French

Affiliations Ruth M. Rothstein CORE Center, Stroger Hospital of Cook County, Chicago, Illinois, United States of America, Department of Medicine, Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, Illinois, United States of America

Mardge Cohen

Affiliations Ruth M. Rothstein CORE Center, Stroger Hospital of Cook County, Chicago, Illinois, United States of America, Department of Medicine, Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, Illinois, United States of America

Douglas Gilbert

Affiliation Department of Immunology/Microbiology, Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, Illinois, United States of America

Patrick Gillevet

Affiliation Department of Environmental Science and Policy, George Mason University Microbiome Analysis Center, Manassas, Virginia, United States of America

Elisaphane Munyazesa

Affiliation Department of Biomedical Services, Rwanda Biomedical Center National Reference Laboratory Division, Kigali, Rwanda

Alan L. Landay

Affiliation Department of Immunology/Microbiology, Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, Illinois, United States of America

Masoumeh Sikaroodi

Affiliation Department of Environmental Science and Policy, George Mason University Microbiome Analysis Center, Manassas, Virginia, United States of America

Gregory T. Spear

Affiliation Department of Immunology/Microbiology, Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, Illinois, United States of America

Competing Interests

The authors wish to disclose that Patrick Gillevet has a financial interest in BioSpherex LLC, contracted to do the MTPS sequencing. On 10/21/2013, he was issued a patent for the MTPS process, Multitag Sequencing for Ecogenomics Analysis USPTO 12/515262. Masoumeh Sikaroodi is a consultant for BioSpherex LLC. This does not alter the authors' adherence to all PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: GS AL. Performed the experiments: DG PG MS. Analyzed the data: LB EG. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: KA MC AF EM. Wrote the paper: LB GS.