About the Authors

Rahul Mittal

Affiliation Department of Otolaryngology, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, Miami, Florida, United States of America

M’hamed Grati

Affiliation Department of Otolaryngology, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, Miami, Florida, United States of America

Robert Gerring

Affiliation Department of Otolaryngology, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, Miami, Florida, United States of America

Patricia Blackwelder

Affiliations Center for Advanced Microscopy, University of Miami, Coral Gables, Florida, United States of America, RSMAS, University of Miami, Key Biscayne, Florida, United States of America

Denise Yan

Affiliation Department of Otolaryngology, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, Miami, Florida, United States of America

Jian-Dong Li

Affiliation Center for Inflammation, Immunity, and Infection and Department of Biology, Georgia State University, Atlanta, Georgia, United States of America

Xue Zhong Liu

xliu@med.miami.edu

Affiliations Department of Otolaryngology, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, Miami, Florida, United States of America, Department of Human Genetics, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, Miami, Florida, United States of America

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: RM MG RG PB DY JL XZL. Performed the experiments: RM RG PB. Analyzed the data: RM XZL. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: PB JL. Wrote the paper: RM MG RG PB DY JL XZL.