About the Authors

Tingting Zhou

Affiliations Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China, Department of Physics, East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina, United States of America

Zhiyang Dong

Affiliation Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

Peter Setlow

Affiliation Department of Molecular, Microbial and Structural Biology, University of Connecticut Health Center, Farmington, Connecticut, United States of America

Yong-qing Li

liy@ecu.edu

Affiliation Department of Physics, East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina, United States of America

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: PS YL. Performed the experiments: TZ YL. Analyzed the data: TZ PS YL. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: PS YL. Wrote the paper: TZ ZD PS YL. Designed the experiments, analysed the results, and revised the manuscript: ZD.