About the Authors

Rui Zhou

Contributed equally to this work with: Rui Zhou, Xiaoqing Li

Affiliation Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, Creighton University Medical Center, Omaha, Nebraska, United States of America

Xiaoqing Li

Contributed equally to this work with: Rui Zhou, Xiaoqing Li

Affiliation Tongji Medical School, Institute of Hematology, Union Hospital, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei, People's Republic of China

Guoku Hu

Affiliation Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, Creighton University Medical Center, Omaha, Nebraska, United States of America

Ai-Yu Gong

Affiliation Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, Creighton University Medical Center, Omaha, Nebraska, United States of America

Kristen M. Drescher

Affiliation Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, Creighton University Medical Center, Omaha, Nebraska, United States of America

Xian-Ming Chen

xianmingchen@creighton.edu

Affiliation Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, Creighton University Medical Center, Omaha, Nebraska, United States of America

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: RZ XL XMC. Performed the experiments: RZ XL GH AYG. Analyzed the data: RZ XL KMD XMC. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: GH AYG KMD. Wrote the paper: RZ KMD XMC.