About the Authors

Srinivasan Krishnamoorthy

ksrini10@gmail.com (SK); xgao@uh.edu (XG)

Affiliation Department of Biology and Biochemistry, University of Houston, Houston, Texas, United States of America

Zhonghua Liu

Current address: Key Laboratory of Protein Chemistry and Developmental Biology, Ministry of Education, Hunan Normal University, Changsha, China

Affiliation Department of Biology and Biochemistry, University of Houston, Houston, Texas, United States of America

Ailing Hong

Affiliation LC Sciences, Houston, Texas, United States of America

Ruijuan Zhu

Affiliation Department of Biology and Biochemistry, University of Houston, Houston, Texas, United States of America

Haosi Chen

Affiliation Department of Biology and Biochemistry, University of Houston, Houston, Texas, United States of America

Tongbin Li

Affiliation LC Sciences, Houston, Texas, United States of America

Xiaochuan Zhou

Affiliation LC Sciences, Houston, Texas, United States of America

Xiaolian Gao

ksrini10@gmail.com (SK); xgao@uh.edu (XG)

Affiliation Department of Biology and Biochemistry, University of Houston, Houston, Texas, United States of America

Competing Interests

The authors have the following interests. Ailing Hong, Tongbin Li and Xiaochuan Zhou are employed by LC Sciences. The Fmoc and Boc amino acids, N-hydroxybenzotriazole (HOBt) and 2-(1H-benzotriazole-1-yl)-1,1,3,3-tetramethyluronium hexafluorophosphate (HBTU) were from GL Biochem (Shanghai Ltd) marketed by LC Sciences (Houston, TX). There are no further patents, products in development or marketed products to declare. This does not alter the authors’ adherence to all the PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials, as detailed online in the guide for authors.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: SK XG. Performed the experiments: SK ZL AH. Analyzed the data: SK RZ XG XZ. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: HC TL. Wrote the paper: SK.