About the Authors

Najealicka Armstrong

Affiliation Biology Department, Howard University, Washington, D.C., United States of America

Malaisamy Ramamoorthy

Affiliation Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Howard University, Washington, D.C., United States of America

Delina Lyon

Affiliation Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Howard University, Washington, D.C., United States of America

Kimberly Jones

Affiliation Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Howard University, Washington, D.C., United States of America

Atanu Duttaroy

aduttaroy@howard.edu

Affiliation Biology Department, Howard University, Washington, D.C., United States of America

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: NA AD. Performed the experiments: NA MR DL KJ. Analyzed the data: NA AD DL MR. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: NA AD KJ. Wrote the paper: NA AD.