About the Authors

Hua V. Lin

Current address: Lilly China Research and Development Center, Shanghai, China

Affiliation Merck Research Laboratories, Rahway, New Jersey, United States of America

Dunlu Chen

Affiliation Merck Research Laboratories, Rahway, New Jersey, United States of America

Zhu Shen

Affiliation Merck Research Laboratories, Rahway, New Jersey, United States of America

Lei Zhu

Affiliation Merck Research Laboratories, Rahway, New Jersey, United States of America

Xuesong Ouyang

Affiliation Kenilworth, New Jersey, United States of America

Aurawan Vongs

Affiliation Merck Research Laboratories, Rahway, New Jersey, United States of America

Yanqing Kan

Affiliation Merck Research Laboratories, Rahway, New Jersey, United States of America

John M. Levorse

Affiliation Merck Research Laboratories, Rahway, New Jersey, United States of America

Edward J. Kowalik Jr

Affiliation Merck Research Laboratories, Rahway, New Jersey, United States of America

Daphne M. Szeto

Affiliation Merck Research Laboratories, Rahway, New Jersey, United States of America

Xiaorui Yao

Affiliation Merck Research Laboratories, Rahway, New Jersey, United States of America

Jianying Xiao

Affiliation Merck Research Laboratories, Rahway, New Jersey, United States of America

Shirley Chen

Affiliation Merck Research Laboratories, Rahway, New Jersey, United States of America

Jinqi Liu

Affiliation Merck Research Laboratories, Rahway, New Jersey, United States of America

Marga Garcia-Calvo

Affiliation Merck Research Laboratories, Rahway, New Jersey, United States of America

Myung K. Shin

Affiliation Merck Research Laboratories, Rahway, New Jersey, United States of America

Shirly Pinto

shirly_pinto@merck.com

Affiliation Merck Research Laboratories, Rahway, New Jersey, United States of America

Competing Interests

All authors were employees of Merck & Co., Inc. when the study was performed, and HVL is a current employee of Eli Lilly and Company. This does not alter the authors' adherence to all the PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: HL MG JL MS SP. Performed the experiments: DC ZS LZ AV YK JL EK DS XY JX XO. Analyzed the data: HL MG SC JL MS SP. Wrote the paper: HL SP.