About the Authors

Chang-Soo Seong

Affiliation Border Biomedical Research Center and Department of Biological Sciences, The University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso, Texas, United States of America

Armando Varela-Ramirez

Affiliation Border Biomedical Research Center and Department of Biological Sciences, The University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso, Texas, United States of America

Xiaolei Tang

Affiliation Department of Medicine, Loma Linda University, Loma Linda, California, United States of America

Brenda Anchondo

Affiliation Border Biomedical Research Center and Department of Biological Sciences, The University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso, Texas, United States of America

Diego Magallanes

Affiliation Border Biomedical Research Center and Department of Biological Sciences, The University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso, Texas, United States of America

Renato J. Aguilera

raguilera@utep.edu

Affiliation Border Biomedical Research Center and Department of Biological Sciences, The University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso, Texas, United States of America

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: CS RJA. Performed the experiments: BA DM XT AVR. Analyzed the data: CS RJA. Wrote the paper: CS RJA.