About the Authors

Weitao Chen

Affiliation Department of Mathematics, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, California, United States of America

Qing Nie

Affiliation Department of Mathematics, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, California, United States of America

Tau-Mu Yi

taumu.yi@lifesci.ucsb.edu (TMY); chou@math.ohio-state.edu (CSC)

Affiliation Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, California, United States of America

Ching-Shan Chou

taumu.yi@lifesci.ucsb.edu (TMY); chou@math.ohio-state.edu (CSC)

Affiliation Department of Mathematics, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, United States of America

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Analyzed the data: WC TMY CSC. Wrote the paper: WC QN TMY CSC. Conceived and designed the modeling simulations and experiments: WC TMY CSC. Performed the lab experiments: TMY. Performed the modeling simulations WC. Wrote the algorithms and software for performing the simulations: WC CSC.