About the Authors

Francesco Pappalardo

francesco.pappalardo@unict.it

‡ These authors are joint first authors on this work.

Affiliation Department of Drug Sciences, University of Catania, 95125, Catania, Italy

Giulia Russo

‡ These authors are joint first authors on this work.

Affiliation Department of Drug Sciences, University of Catania, 95125, Catania, Italy

Saverio Candido

Affiliation Department of Biomedical and Biotechnological Sciences, University of Catania, 95125, Catania, Italy

Marzio Pennisi

Affiliation Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Catania, 95125, Catania, Italy

Salvatore Cavalieri

Affiliation Department of Engineering, University of Catania, 95125, Catania, Italy

Santo Motta

Affiliation Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Catania, 95125, Catania, Italy

James A. McCubrey

Affiliation Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University, Greenville, NC, United States of America

Ferdinando Nicoletti

Affiliation Department of Biomedical and Biotechnological Sciences, University of Catania, 95125, Catania, Italy

Massimo Libra

Affiliation Department of Biomedical and Biotechnological Sciences, University of Catania, 95125, Catania, Italy

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: FP ML. Performed the experiments: S. Candido GR. Analyzed the data: GR MP S. Candido. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: MP GR S. Candido. Wrote the paper: FP GR S. Cavalieri S. Candido MP JAM SM FN ML.