About the Authors

Wolfgang Goettel

Contributed equally to this work with: Wolfgang Goettel, Yong-Qiang (Charles) An

Affiliation United States Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, Plant Genetics Research Unit, Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, Saint Louis, Missouri, United States of America

Zongrang Liu

Affiliation United States Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, Appalachian Fruit Research Station, Kearneysville, West Virginia, United States of America

Jing Xia

Affiliation Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Washington University, Saint Louis, Missouri, United States of America

Weixiong Zhang

Affiliation Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Washington University, Saint Louis, Missouri, United States of America

Patrick X. Zhao

Affiliation Plant Biology Division, The Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation, Ardmore, Oklahoma, United States of America

Yong-Qiang (Charles) An

Contributed equally to this work with: Wolfgang Goettel, Yong-Qiang (Charles) An

yong-qiang.an@ars.usda.gov

Affiliation United States Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, Plant Genetics Research Unit, Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, Saint Louis, Missouri, United States of America

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: YQA. Performed the experiments: YQA. Analyzed the data: YQA WG JX WZ PZ ZL. Wrote the paper: YQA WG.