About the Authors

Ruiqin Zhong

Affiliation Department of Plant Biology, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, United States of America

Ryan L. McCarthy

Affiliation Department of Plant Biology, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, United States of America

Marziyeh Haghighat

Affiliation Department of Plant Biology, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, United States of America

Zheng-Hua Ye

zhye@plantbio.uga.edu

Affiliation Department of Plant Biology, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, United States of America

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: RZ RM MH ZY. Performed the experiments: RZ RM MH ZY. Analyzed the data: RZ RM MH ZY. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: RZ RM MH ZY. Wrote the paper: RZ RM MH ZY.