About the Authors

Rong Wang

rong.wang@monsanto.com

Affiliation Monsanto Company, St. Louis, Missouri, United States of America

Thomas C. Edrington

Affiliation Monsanto Company, St. Louis, Missouri, United States of America

S. Bradley Storrs

Affiliation Monsanto Company, St. Louis, Missouri, United States of America

Kathleen S. Crowley

Current address: Tioma Therapeutics, St. Louis, Missouri, United States of America

Affiliation Monsanto Company, St. Louis, Missouri, United States of America

Jason M. Ward

Current address: Royal Canin, St. Charles, Missouri, United States of America

Affiliation Monsanto Company, St. Louis, Missouri, United States of America

Thomas C. Lee

Affiliation Monsanto Company, St. Louis, Missouri, United States of America

Zi L. Liu

Affiliation Monsanto Company, St. Louis, Missouri, United States of America

Bin Li

Affiliation Monsanto Company, St. Louis, Missouri, United States of America

Kevin C. Glenn

Affiliation Monsanto Company, St. Louis, Missouri, United States of America

Competing Interests

We have the following interests. Monsanto Company funded this study and was the employer of all authors during the study time. The funder provided managerial guidance during the study and final approval to publish the manuscript. There are no patents, products in development or marketed products to declare. This does not alter our adherence to all the PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials, as detailed online in the guide for authors.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization: RW KSC JMW KCG. Formal analysis: RW. Investigation: RW. Methodology: RW SBS. Visualization: RW TCE BL KCG. Writing – original draft: RW TCE KCG. Writing – review & editing: RW TCE SBS TCL ZLL BL KCG.