About the Authors

Shunlin Ren

sren@vcu.edu

Affiliation Department of Medicine, Veterans Affairs McGuire Medical Center/Department of Medicine, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, United States of America

Jin Koung Kim

Affiliation Department of Medicine, Veterans Affairs McGuire Medical Center/Department of Medicine, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, United States of America

Genta Kakiyama

Affiliation Department of Medicine, Veterans Affairs McGuire Medical Center/Department of Medicine, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, United States of America

Daniel Rodriguez-Agudo

Affiliation Department of Medicine, Veterans Affairs McGuire Medical Center/Department of Medicine, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, United States of America

William M. Pandak

Affiliation Department of Medicine, Veterans Affairs McGuire Medical Center/Department of Medicine, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, United States of America

Hae-Ki Min

Affiliation Department of Medicine, Veterans Affairs McGuire Medical Center/Department of Medicine, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, United States of America

Yanxia Ning

Affiliation Department of Medicine, Veterans Affairs McGuire Medical Center/Department of Medicine, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, United States of America

Competing Interests

This project has been licensed and funded by Durect Corporation. There are no awarded patents, products in development, or marketed products to declare. This does not alter our 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: SR. Performed the experiments: SR JK GK YN. Analyzed the data: SR JK. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: SR JK DR. Contributed to the writing of the manuscript: SR HM WP.