About the Authors

Thorsten Wille

Affiliation Junior Research Group 3, Robert Koch-Institute, Wernigerode Branch, Wernigerode, Germany

Britta Barlag

Affiliation Division of Microbiology, School of Biology/Chemistry, University of Osnabrück, Osnabrück, Germany

Vladimir Jakovljevic

Affiliation Center for Molecular Biology at the University of Heidelberg (ZMBH), DKFZ (German Cancer Research Center) -ZMBH Alliance, Heidelberg, Germany

Michael Hensel

Affiliation Division of Microbiology, School of Biology/Chemistry, University of Osnabrück, Osnabrück, Germany

Victor Sourjik

Affiliations Center for Molecular Biology at the University of Heidelberg (ZMBH), DKFZ (German Cancer Research Center) -ZMBH Alliance, Heidelberg, Germany, Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology & LOEWE (state offensive for the development of scientific and economic excellence) Center for Synthetic Microbiology (SYNMIKRO), Marburg, Germany

Roman G. Gerlach

gerlachr@rki.de

Affiliation Junior Research Group 3, Robert Koch-Institute, Wernigerode Branch, Wernigerode, Germany

Competing Interests

Roman G. Gerlach and Michael Hensel currently serve as academic editors for this journal. This does not alter the authors' adherence to PLOS ONE Editorial policies and criteria.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: RGG TW. Performed the experiments: TW BB. Analyzed the data: TW RGG BB VJ. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: VS MH. Wrote the paper: TW RGG.