About the Authors

Erin L. Doyle

Current address: Department of Biology, Doane College, Crete, Nebraska, United States of America

Affiliation Department of Plant Pathology and Microbiology, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa, United States of America

Aaron W. Hummel

Affiliation Department of Plant Pathology and Microbiology, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa, United States of America

Zachary L. Demorest

Affiliations Department of Genetics, Cell Biology & Development and Center for Genome Engineering, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States of America, Cellectis Plant Sciences, New Brighton, Minnesota, United States of America

Colby G. Starker

Affiliation Department of Genetics, Cell Biology & Development and Center for Genome Engineering, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States of America

Daniel F. Voytas

Affiliation Department of Genetics, Cell Biology & Development and Center for Genome Engineering, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States of America

Philip Bradley

Affiliation Division of Public Health Sciences, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, Washington, United States of America

Adam J. Bogdanove

ajb7@cornell.edu

Affiliations Department of Plant Pathology and Microbiology, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa, United States of America, Plant Pathology and Plant-Microbe Biology, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, United States of America

Competing Interests

DFV and AJB are co-inventors on three patents related to DNA modification with TAL effector nucleases (United States Patents 8450471, 8440432, and 8440431, “TAL effector-mediated DNA modification”). ELD is a co-inventor on a pending patent related to the same invention (United States patent application 20110145940, “TAL effector-mediated DNA modification”). The patents are co-owned by Iowa State University and the University of Minnesota, and have been licensed to Cellectis, a European biotechnology company and vendor of TALENs and TALEN related services. DFV is a paid consultant for, and ZLD is a full time employee of Cellectis Plant Sciences, a subsidiary of Cellectis. 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: ELD AWH ZLD DFV PB AJB. Performed the experiments: ELD AWH ZLD CGS PB. Analyzed the data: ELD AWH ZLD CGS DFV PB AJB. Wrote the manuscript: ELD AWH PB AJB. Assistance in writing the manuscript: CGS ZLD DFV.