About the Authors

Yongguang Gao

Current address: School of Natural Sciences, University of California-Meced, Merced, California, United States of America

Affiliation The Hormel Institute, University of Minnesota, Austin, Minnesota, United States of America

Taeowan Chung

Affiliation School of Biotechnology, Yeungnam University, Kyeongsan, Republic of Korea

Xianqiong Zou

Affiliation The Hormel Institute, University of Minnesota, Austin, Minnesota, United States of America

Helen M. Pike

Affiliation The Hormel Institute, University of Minnesota, Austin, Minnesota, United States of America

Rhoderick E. Brown

reb@umn.edu

Affiliation The Hormel Institute, University of Minnesota, Austin, Minnesota, United States of America

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: YG TC XZ REB. Performed the experiments: YG TC XZ HMP. Analyzed the data: YG TC XZ HMP REB. Wrote the paper: YG REB. Prepared the figures: YG XZ.