About the Authors

Shuyan Chen

Affiliation Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology, College of Medicine, Drexel University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States of America

Lihua Yao

Affiliation Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology, College of Medicine, Drexel University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States of America

Timothy J. Cunningham

tcunning@drexelmed.edu

Affiliation Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology, College of Medicine, Drexel University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States of America

Competing Interests

The authors have read the journal's policy and have the following conflicts: TJC and LY have applied for patent protection on the CHEC-9 peptide used in this work. There are no further products in development or marketed products to declare. This does not alter the authors' adherence to all the PLoS ONE policies on sharing data and materials, as detailed online in the guide for authors.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: SC TJC. Performed the experiments: SC LY. Analyzed the data: SC. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: SC LY. Wrote the paper: SC TJC.