About the Authors

Thamotharampillai Dileepan

Contributed equally to this work with: Thamotharampillai Dileepan, Hyeon O. Kim

Affiliation Department of Microbiology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, United States of America

Hyeon O. Kim

Contributed equally to this work with: Thamotharampillai Dileepan, Hyeon O. Kim

Affiliation Department of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences, University of Minnesota, Saint Paul, MN, United States of America

P. Patrick Cleary

Affiliation Department of Microbiology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, United States of America

Pamela J. Skinner

skinn002@umn.edu

Affiliation Department of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences, University of Minnesota, Saint Paul, MN, United States of America

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: PJS HOK TD PPC. Performed the experiments: HK TD. Analyzed the data: PJS HK TD. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: PJS PPC. Wrote the paper: PJS TD.