About the Authors

Lili Zhang

Affiliation Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences and Center for Reproductive Sciences, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California, United States of America

Brigitte E. Blackman

Affiliation Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences and Center for Reproductive Sciences, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California, United States of America

Marcus D. Schonemann

Affiliation Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences and Center for Reproductive Sciences, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California, United States of America

Tatjana Zogovic-Kapsalis

Affiliation Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences and Center for Reproductive Sciences, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California, United States of America

Xiaoyu Pan

Affiliation Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, University of California Davis, Davis, California, United States of America

Mary Tagliaferri

Affiliation Bionovo Inc., Emeryville, California, United States of America

Heather A. Harris

Affiliation Women's Health and Musculoskeletal Biology, Wyeth Research, Collegeville, Pennsylvania, United States of America

Isaac Cohen

Affiliation Bionovo Inc., Emeryville, California, United States of America

Renee A. Reijo Pera

Affiliation Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Center for Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research and Education, Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, Stanford University, Palo Alto, California, United States of America

Synthia H. Mellon

Affiliation Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences and Center for Reproductive Sciences, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California, United States of America

Richard I. Weiner

Affiliation Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences and Center for Reproductive Sciences, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California, United States of America

Dale C. Leitman

dale@leitmanlab.com

Affiliations Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences and Center for Reproductive Sciences, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California, United States of America, Department of Nutritional Science and Toxicology, University of California, Berkeley, California, United States of America

Competing Interests

L.Z., B.B., M.S., T. Z-K., R. A. R-P., S.H.M. and R.I.W. have nothing to declare. M.T., and I.C. are employees of Bionovo, Inc. H.A.H. is an employee of Wyeth. D.C.L. is on the Scientific Advisory Board and has received financial support for research from Bionovo, Inc. MF101 is a plant extract that was conceived and designed by Isaac Cohen at Bionovo and was provided by Bionovo through a Material Transfer Agreement for use in studies in the paper. All the experiments in the paper were performed at UCSF. Bionovo did not have any role in the design or execution of the experiments, analysis of the data or writing the paper. All authors comply with PLoS's data sharing policies.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: LZ BB MS SM RW DL. Performed the experiments: LZ BB TZK. Analyzed the data: LZ BB RW DL. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: MS XP MT HH IC RARP SM RW. Wrote the paper: LZ RW DL.