About the Authors

Rujuan Dai

rdai05@vt.edu (RD); ansrahmd@vt.edu (SAA)

Affiliation Center for Molecular Medicine and Infectious Diseases (CMMID), Department of Biomedical Sciences and Pathology, Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Virginia, United States of America

Yan Zhang

Affiliation Virginia Bioinformatics Institute, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Virginia, United States of America

Deena Khan

Affiliation Center for Molecular Medicine and Infectious Diseases (CMMID), Department of Biomedical Sciences and Pathology, Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Virginia, United States of America

Bettina Heid

Affiliation Center for Molecular Medicine and Infectious Diseases (CMMID), Department of Biomedical Sciences and Pathology, Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Virginia, United States of America

David Caudell

Affiliation Center for Molecular Medicine and Infectious Diseases (CMMID), Department of Biomedical Sciences and Pathology, Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Virginia, United States of America

Oswald Crasta

Affiliation Virginia Bioinformatics Institute, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Virginia, United States of America

S. Ansar Ahmed

rdai05@vt.edu (RD); ansrahmd@vt.edu (SAA)

Affiliation Center for Molecular Medicine and Infectious Diseases (CMMID), Department of Biomedical Sciences and Pathology, Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Virginia, United States of America

Competing Interests

Dr. Rujuan Dai and Dr. S. Ansar Ahmed have filed a provisional patent application through Virginia Tech Intellectual Properties (VTIP) on the finding of the common lupus disease-related miRNAs in lupus mice. 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: RD SAA. Performed the experiments: RD DK BH. Analyzed the data: RD YZ DC OC. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: YZ. Wrote the paper: RD SAA.