About the Authors

Gada K. Al-Ani

Affiliation Department of Biochemistry, Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas, United States of America

Nipul Patel

Affiliation Department of Biological Sciences, St. John's University, Jamaica, New York, United States of America

Karim A. Pirani

Affiliation Department of Biochemistry, Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas, United States of America

Tongtong Zhu

Affiliation Department of Biological Sciences, St. John's University, Jamaica, New York, United States of America

Subbhalakshmi Dhalladoo

Affiliation Department of Biological Sciences, St. John's University, Jamaica, New York, United States of America

Rachel Zufferey

zufferer@stjohns.edu

Affiliations Department of Biochemistry, Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas, United States of America, Department of Biological Sciences, St. John's University, Jamaica, New York, United States of America

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: RZ NP. Performed the experiments: GKA NP KAP TZ SD RZ. Analyzed the data: GKA NP RZ. Wrote the paper: RZ.