About the Authors

Bin Xu

Affiliation Department of Horticulture, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia, United States of America

Noppadon Sathitsuksanoh

Affiliation Department of Biological Systems Engineering, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia, United States of America

Yuhong Tang

Affiliations Plant Biology Division, Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation, Ardmore, Oklahoma, United States of America, BESC – The BioEnergy Science Center of U.S. Department of Energy, Ardmore, Oklahoma, United States of America

Michael K. Udvardi

Affiliations Plant Biology Division, Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation, Ardmore, Oklahoma, United States of America, BESC – The BioEnergy Science Center of U.S. Department of Energy, Ardmore, Oklahoma, United States of America

Ji-Yi Zhang

Affiliations Plant Biology Division, Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation, Ardmore, Oklahoma, United States of America, BESC – The BioEnergy Science Center of U.S. Department of Energy, Ardmore, Oklahoma, United States of America

Zhengxing Shen

Affiliation Department of Horticulture, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia, United States of America

Maria Balota

Affiliation Department of Plant Pathology, Plant Physiology and Weed Science, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia, United States of America

Kim Harich

Affiliation Department of Biochemistry, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia, United States of America

Percival Y.-H. Zhang

Affiliation Department of Biological Systems Engineering, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia, United States of America

Bingyu Zhao

bzhao07@vt.edu

Affiliation Department of Horticulture, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia, United States of America

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: BX BZ. Performed the experiments: BX BZ NS JZ ZS KH. Analyzed the data: BX BZ MU YT MB PZ. Wrote the paper: BX BZ.