About the Authors

Patrizia Puddu

Contributed equally to this work with: Patrizia Puddu, Daniela Latorre

Affiliation Department of Cell Biology and Neurosciences, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Rome, Italy

Daniela Latorre

Contributed equally to this work with: Patrizia Puddu, Daniela Latorre

Affiliation Department of Cell Biology and Neurosciences, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Rome, Italy

Maria Carollo

Affiliation Department of Cell Biology and Neurosciences, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Rome, Italy

Angela Catizone

Affiliation Department of Anatomy, Histology, Forensic Medicine and Orthopedics, Sapienza, University of Rome, Rome, Italy

Giulia Ricci

Affiliation Department of Experimental Medicine, Second University of Naples, Naples, Italy

Piera Valenti

Affiliation Department of Public Health Sciences and Infectious Diseases, Sapienza, University of Rome, Rome, Italy

Sandra Gessani

sandra.gessani@iss.it

Affiliation Department of Cell Biology and Neurosciences, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Rome, Italy

Competing Interests

BMG Pharma LLC and Microbo srl Biotechnology Company as employment funders. 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: PP SG. Performed the experiments: DL MC AC GR. Analyzed the data: PP SG AC PV DL. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: PV SG AC. Wrote the paper: PP SG.